Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Taxi Blu-ray Movie Review

Not worth the fare.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater April 6, 2011

The four films in the Luc Besson-produced Taxi series were all enormously popular in France, raking in some of the country’s biggest box office intakes ever. Inevitably, Hollywood took note and got Besson to produce an Americanization in 2004, also called Taxi, starring newly freed- from-SNL comedian Jimmy Fallon and big-hearted rapper-turned-actor Queen Latifah as unlikely buddies who catch a gang of sexy female bank robbers. The remake did decent business in U.S. theaters—bringing in almost $70 million—but the film, to put it gently, sucks. Unoriginal, sloppily executed, and—worst of all—dull, Taxi is about as much fun as getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic with a loquacious cab driver who wants to tell you all about his psoriasis. There have been no further American Taxi movies, though, and for this, we can be thankful. One is more than enough.

It all starts ridiculously. We see a sporty NYC bicycle courier—dressed in head-to-toe Lycra, face covered—darting through traffic, hauling it through a Macy’s department store, somehow coasting through a subway turnstile, rebounding off trucks, clearing a chasm in the Brooklyn bridge, and generally pulling off stunts that would leave the best bike messengers mangled beneath the tires of angry New York motorists. When this anonymous BMX bandit finally pulls into courier headquarters and de-masks, whaddaya know? It’s Queen Latifah! No offense but, uh, baby’s got back, and Q.L.’s stuntperson looks significantly more svelte. It’s movie magic!

Anyway, Queen Latifah plays Belle Williams, a wannabe NASCAR racer who, on the day the movie starts, is quitting the courier scene to become a cab driver, trading her bike for a Crown Victoria tricked out with every performance-enhancing after-market accessory imaginable. And no, I have no idea how she can afford the car—or her fancy converted garage apartment—on a bike messenger’s wage. Belle has a long-term live-in boyfriend (Henry Simmons), but here’s everything you need to know about their relationship: instead of cozying up next to him in bed, Belle opts to spend the night installing her new titanium supercharger. The next day, the added speed boost gives her the zip to take her first terrified passenger from downtown to JFK is under nine minutes. “Buckle up for safety motherf—,” she exclaims, the expletive truncated from the PG-13 film by the squeal of the Crown Vic’s low-riding rear tires. Hilarious.

Meanwhile, we meet Jimmy Fallon as Andy Washburn, an inept undercover cop notorious for his poor driving abilities. While trying to bust a gang of Cubans selling illegal phone cards—Remember phone cards? Those things we used before Skype?—Andy wrecks his third squad car in as many months, leading hot-stuff Lieutenant Marta Robbins (Jennifer Esposito) to take away his driver’s license and assign him to the street beat. Responding to an all points bulletin about a bank robbery in process, Andy hops in Belle’s cab, directs her toward the action, and we’re off! Unfortunately, what we’re off on is a car-based buddy film that moves in fits and stops, its narrative engine sputtering, choking, and eventually, stalling.

The plot, if you’re kind enough to call it that, can be summed up in three words: Stop Sexy Robbers. Maybe that would’ve been a better title. Leggy Victoria’s Secret supermodel Gisele Bündchen leads a band of like-bodied minxes—including Ana Cristina de Oliveira, Indrid Vandebosch, and Magali Amadei—who wear absurd disguises, drive around in a sweet-ass BMW, and have a conspicuous knack for finding open parking spots immediately in front of the banks they plan to rob. The models aren’t really required to act; sure, they bark some German to one another when necessary, but the robbers have no backstory and little dialogue, let alone character development. They’re just here to look good. At one point, the camera even gives them a titillating up-and-down once-over. I kept wondering when the film would give us the old wet t-shirt carwash scene, but unfortunately it never does. The closest we get is a scene where Gisele and her lanky lackeys give their BMW a full-body make-over in the time it takes a NASCAR pit crew to change a tire.

If the villains are total blanks—albeit, hot ones—our two protagonists are made up entirely of buddy film clichés. They Meet Cute. They’re total opposites who initially hate each other. Madcap antics ensue. Bound by circumstance and the pursuit of a common goal, their antagonism eventually gives way to fondness. By the end, they’re fast friends. How much do you wanna bet Belle teaches Andy how to drive? Both actors are essentially playing larger-than-life versions of themselves. Jimmy Fallon is his usual boyish, dorky, unkempt self, and at one point he even gets to do his high- pitched singing shtick, crooning along to Natalie Cole’s “This Will Be” while he, yes, gets driving lessons from Belle. Queen Latifah—so good in Chicago and Set It Off—is confined to being merely sassy, doling out lines like “I know you ain’t talkin’ to me,” and “What are you trying to do, a 78-point turn?” They each have a smattering of funny gags, but hardly enough to sustain an entire film.

Fallon and Latifah are not to blame. The script—by Besson, Thomas Lennon, and Robert Ben Garant—is severely underdeveloped, and director Tim Story (Fantastic Four) can’t seem to keep the momentum going. For a film specifically about automotive insanity, Taxi’s car chases are tedious, gracelessly choreographed affairs. There’s no sense of geographical continuity, little excitement, and worse, some of the scenes rely far too heavily on now-dated CGI and blue screen, which completely takes you out of the experience. There are only two highlights, a massive multi-car pileup early in the film—cars are sent swerving into, and flying over, one another—and later, a hostage-for-money swap on the highway between two cars going 100 mph. It’s not enough. Fast cars and hot models may be enough to sustain interest for a 30-second Superbowl commercial, but the sleekness of Taxi's eye candy only reflects how unrefined the film is in all other respects.

Taxi Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Something about Taxi's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer just doesn't seem right to me. Actually, a few things. First, the image seems artificially edgy throughout, and you'll occasionally spot black or white haloes around hard outlines—the telltale evidence of edge enhancement. There also seems to be some minor noise reduction at play; grain is still partially visible, but it looks lightly smoothed out and less particle-like than it otherwise would. I'm just guessing here, but it looks like Fox might've simply recycled an old HD master from the film's DVD release. Once again, just a guess, but the image does have that distinct, doesn't quite seem to be prepared especially for Blu-ray look. Still, you can't say this isn't an upgrade from the DVD. Clarity is the area that's most consistently improved; fine textures are more cleanly rendered and the picture allows you to inspect the smallest details of the film's cars. (The over-edginess, however, does detract.) Color gets a slight performance boost too. Along with the obvious taxi cab yellows, you can expect strong primaries and balanced skin tones. While black levels can seem a bit diluted during darker scenes, contrast is usually right where it should be, and there are no noticeable compression-related distractions. The one real downside to seeing the film in high definition? The low-rent CGI looks even less convincing than before.

Taxi Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Taxi rolls onto Blu-ray with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that delivers just about exactly what you'd expect. Providing, that is, you're expecting a mix dominated by throaty engines, squealing tires, and other automotive noises, peppered occasionally by gunfire. This definitely isn't the most pedal-to-the-metal action film audio track I've heard lately—it doesn't have the sheer clarity, immersion, or dynamic range—but it's better than merely respectable, with plenty of growl and a good bit of rip-roaring cross-channel activity. The surrounds are put to good use during the action sequences, where you'll hear cars whipping between speakers, crunchy, glass-shattering collisions, and several clips' worth of bullets puncturing the space around and behind your head. Not bad. Christophe Beck's score leaves no impression, but the film effectively uses a a handful of pop/R'n'B numbers, like Beyonce's "Crazy in Love," and the music sounds just fine, with lots of low-end response and a presence that fills the soundfield. Dialogue, as you'd hope, is clean and intelligible throughout, riding high on the mix.

Taxi Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Director Tim Story: Story delivers an informative-enough track, but are you really going to watch Taxi again just to listen to the commentary?
• Deleted Scenes (SD, 3:54): Four extremely short deleted scenes.
• The Meter's Runnin' - Making of Featurette (SD, 20:10): Exactly what it sounds like, with lots of behind the scenes footage, interviews, and Jimmy Fallon being funny on set.
• Lights, Camera, Blue Screen (SD, 5:36): A behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the blue-screened driving sequences.
• Tour Guide - Jimmy Fallon (SD, 5:35): Fallon gives us a tour of the set, cracking wise and basically making stuff up.
• Reel Comedy - Taxi (SD, 21:13): A Comedy Central special about the film, hosted by two of the guys from Reno 911. Funnier than the film itself.
• Beautiful Criminals Music Montage (SD, 2:34): Ogle the four models in the film, with music.

Taxi Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As usual in movies of this sort, the end credit sequence is livened up by a series of gags, outtakes, and improvisations that provide more laughs in two minutes than in all of Taxi's previous 97 minutes combined. It makes you wonder how much better a big-budget action-comedy like this could be if it weren't so heavily scripted. Taxi just isn't very good, but—and I may draw some flack for this—the original French films aren't either. Save your cash to pick up one of the better movies coming out on Blu-ray this week.