From Paris With Love... is incredi-horrid

I sit here dumb founded and stupified this morning. From Paris with Love is scoring 35% on the T-Meter and The Wolfman is pulling 30%. There is no justice in this world, and there is no sanity among movie critics. How From Paris can outscore The Wolfman is utterly baffling to me.

I think this was supposed to be an action-comedy. The problem with that statement is that the audience never laughed one time in my theater showing.

The problems with From Paris all flow from a single source: the script. The production design is not bad. The direction is not bad. The acting is not bad. The editing is not bad. The casting was absolutely and completely wrong. The story is straight-up stupid. The character design and casting is pretty dreadful also. If you couldn't see the (so-called) twist coming 1,000 miles away, then you have smoked your last brain cell. There is nothing left inside your skull.

Is this the coolest Travolta ever? Maybe... if you think Travolta trying to do a Chris Tucker imitation is cool. The screenplay was obviously written for Chris Tucker of the 1990s. If Cater from Rush Hour were a CIA Spook, that would be the role Travolta was playing in From Paris.

Sound weird? Yep, it is. I think it was a preposterous casting mistake putting Travolta in this role; a dreadful mistake. Why didn't you just get Chris Tucker? Do you think it is cool watching Travolta do an imitation of Chris Tucker, playing Carter in Rush Hour... if Carter were a CIA hitman?

There are only two possible explanations for this script:

1. It was written by a 16 year old white boy who is the son of a Lion's Gate executive.
2. It was cranked out of the Ole' Script-o-matic when an executive in a Lion's Gate meeting pushed the 'go' button in a product planning session.

I am inclined to believe the latter. I am sorry that a quality technical production team was wasted on such a script. They sure tried hard. Hard-effort or not, the movie is executing a rapid belly-whop flopper right now. From Paris totaled $4.7 million this weekend, finishing in 7th place. It made only $1.7k per theater showing this weekend. For those who do not know it, that is a dreadful showing. It's going to close quick. It will be circling the drain on the TNT within the year.

It is the perfect movie for the Valentine's Day weekend, though. Johnathan shoots his girlfriend through the head at the end of this Valentine stinker. It was smart to release this flick at this time of year, Real Men of Genius!