Colombiana

Colombiana (2011) was written as the sequel to another film, and that film is Léon. Luc Besson wanted to make a Léon sequel for years. The script was called Mathilda and would have followed an older, more grown Mathilda. They waited for Natalie Portman to age into it, Besson left Gaumont in the meantime to start his own company, and the rights to Léon stayed with Gaumont. That made the sequel impossible. Besson reworked the script into a standalone story and Colombiana is the result. Knowing this changes the film. Cataleya witnesses her parents' murder as a child, is raised by her uncle, and becomes an assassin. This is the Mathilda sequel that never happened. Besson's signature is everywhere: the female assassin, the childhood trauma, the elaborate killing setups, European made American action. Zoe Saldaña did most of her own fighting and acrobatics, and this is the first action film she carried alone. The plot is thin and the villains are cardboard. Against that, the sequence where she enters a prison through a ventilation shaft is one of the genre's good moments. It runs 108 minutes. Good for: action, revenge films, and Besson's house style. Less good for: there is violence, it opens with a child witnessing murder, and the screenplay does not hold up to scrutiny.