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169 comments in total

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78 out of 114 people found the following comment useful :-
Weak remake of 3 classics, 11 October 2004

Author: dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York

This is the American version of the French Taxi films and it suffers in comparison.

I'm not kidding when I say that this a remake of the three French films since although the film is mainly a poor remake of the the first film, it lifts sequences from the second and third films.

Its a mess, a real mess. I'm a huge huge fan of the French films, and for me there was no real point in my seeing this since anything that worked came from the originals.

Why did they bother? They changed the sex of the lead (though the Queen is excellent), combined others and rewrote the cops mother to the point of stupidness. They lost any sense of timing and connection...they should have started from the ground up.

Its not the painfully awful film that some reviews made it out to be, but it is a waste of time. If you can find the originals and watch those. That should take you the better part of 5 hours and in the end you will not feel as though you've wasted your life.

3 out of 10.

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125 out of 219 people found the following comment useful :-
The Worst Movie Ever Made, 3 January 2005

Author: rizzo_tha_rat from Sweden

My God. Having watched all of the three french prequels I have to say I was a bit skeptical right from the start, but this is pure madness. Being able to shred such a great movie as "Taxi" into this horrible excuse for a film is beyond me. There are no humor, no story, no acting and no action. It lacks everything you want from this types of films. I have to say that if you were able to see the whole movie in 5 minutes, it wouldn't be worth the time. If you're thinking of seeing this movie and haven't seen the french one, please, do yourself a favor. See the original.

And if any of your friends claims that this movie is worth seeing, he or she is not. Believe in me.

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29 out of 37 people found the following comment useful :-
See the french Original, 9 May 2007

Author: kosmasp

And just to make sure you get it right, i'll repeat myself: Watch the french original! It's so much better, starting from the cast (Queen Latifah is so miscast, it hurts), straight to the story/humor (it's just not right)!

The best scene (to at least have one good comment about the title) is a scene involving Jennifer Esposito and Gisele Bündchen, which had a sort of "tension" to it, that was funny and sexy at the same time! Funnily (or maybe not so funny) enough, with the cast here, you'd be excused to think that it would be more often like that. But it's neither funny nor sexy ... and I'm not talking at the same time, at all! Except the one scene ... but that doesn't save the movie, which just is too long and has nothing going for it! It's a shame, because Jimmy Fallon can be funny, but here he's just annoying!

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22 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Big budget comedy with cut-rate jokes..., 23 October 2005

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Slick, flashy film, a semi-remake of Luc Besson's "Taxi" from 1998, here Americanized as an urban action-comedy. Queen Latifah plays smart-mouthed cabbie with a souped-up vehicle in New York City who inadvertently partners with stumble bum cop Jimmy Fallon to crack a major crime case. Film should have relied more on Latifah's natural sass and less on Fallon's white-bread, dim-witted act (race is a constant punchline in the script, and Fallon is just there as Exhibit A). Jennifer Esposito is wonderful as a no-nonsense police lieutenant, Ann-Margret is a stitch as Fallon's tippling mother, and John Sierros (Broadway actor shamefully credited as 'Fat Cop') shines as a bamboozled police officer, but what happened to Queen Latifah? She gets a few good cracks in, but there's no character here for her to play; she sticks to her sarcastic persona and puts everyone down, but her role is depressingly one-dimensional. Comedy has a fast pace, impressive cinematography (although the swooping crane shots in traffic get repetitive) and some good car chases, but the screenplay needed an overhaul. ** from ****

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28 out of 44 people found the following comment useful :-
Wait For Video, 13 November 2004

Author: christian123

When he loses his driver's license, an inept police officer (Jimmy Fallon) must rely on the reckless driving skills of a taxi driver who would prefer to drive race cars (Queen Latifah) to help him stop a gang of beautiful Brazilian bank robbers.

The premise sounds like one of those film that are really stupid yet still kind of funny. However, it didn't really work out like that. The film wasn't a complete dud it just wasn't very funny. I wasn't surprised this film didn't do so well in theaters. The previews were weak and a lot of people don't like Jimmy Fallon. I only saw it because of Queen Latifah. Unfortunately, she couldn't save the movie. The film was just too childish and unoriginal. There were a few funny lines yet nothing that really made me laugh a lot. It starts off well but then it starts to drag and it feels a lot longer than 97 minutes. I even had low expectations because the critics murdered the movie but it was not very funny.

Queen Latifah is easily the best thing about Taxi. She has a lot of charisma and she makes the film watchable. Jimmy Fallon was okay, nothing special. Sometimes he tried too hard to be funny though. For his first movie, he sure made a poor choice. He could have a successful movie career, he just needs to make better choices. Gisele Bundchen is very beautiful and she did a good job but her role didn't exactly call for a lot of acting talent. The direction was uneven and Tim Story isn't a very good director. Also, the chemistry between Latifah and Fallon just wasn't there and they didn't seem right for each other. This comedy just suffered from a weak script and weak direction. It ended up being a below average comedy and it wasn't worth watching in theaters. In the end, if you're interested in watching Taxi wait for video. Rating 4/10

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13 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
This Taxi's run outta gas, 9 December 2004

Author: jiujitsu_jesus from Faulconbridge, NSW Australia

TAXI is the American remake of the quirky 1998 Luc Besson comedy. While the core of the film is still oriented around fast cars, hot chicks and zany humour, the film's light-hearted French comedic ambiance has been replaced with a dirtier, more strident, and somewhat more serious American action-comedy feel, which, although it tries hard, doesn't quite translate as it should. Queen Latifah leads as Belle Williams, a taxi driver who runs a souped-up Ford around the meaner streets of the city. Jimmy Fallon plays the unco New York cop who lands in her cab one day in pursuit of a bunch of foxy Brazilian bank robbers. Together, they muddle through car-crashes, shoot-outs and weirdly-decorated apartments to bring crooks to justice. While the plot sounds like a good premise for a decent comedy, the film is sorely lacking in script composition. The one-liners are crap, the jokes feel forced, and the script, which alternates between taking itself too seriously and sheer stupidity, does no justice whatsoever to the energetic and talented cast. A major disappointment from what looked to be a brilliant film. Someone should remake it in six more years - with a little more skill, I hope.

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10 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Man, this movie is utter and complete load of crap, 12 March 2006

Author: boyfrombrazil89 from Serbia and Montenegro

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Like Roger Ebert once stated about a movie, I'll use his words to state this one: (This movie)isn't even the bottom of the barrel, it doesn't even scrape the bottom of barrel. It doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as barrels. When you have a movie where Queen Latifah is the most experienced actor in the film, you know you are in trouble.The debut appearances of Giselle and Jimmy were awful. They did not get into character and made no connection between the the audience and the movie. It surprised me that such amateur actors in the movie business (jimmy is quite good in Saturday night live) were given such large roles. Also, the whole plot was ludicrous. Brazilian supermodels robbing a bank? In New York? Yeah, right. BS. Still wanna watch this movie? Watch it at your own risk!

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17 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
A cheap rip-off of a classic french comedy, 29 June 2006

Author: Rorschach17 from United Kingdom

Avoid this film at all costs! This is just a very very cheap remake of the french movie by the same name. Being a big fan of that Taxi, I was intrigued to see what the Yanks had done with it. Watching it was painful, the only reason I watched till the end was to see how low they were going to go with this film.

Queen Latifa's performance is the only redeeming aspect of this film, who does her best with an unoriginal, crass and cheap script. The best scenes are direct rip-offs of the original film and Jimmy Fallon is wasted on a one dimensional ridiculous character.

Go see the original french film and give this one as wide a berth as you can!

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20 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
Off duty!, 11 October 2005

Author: jotix100 from New York

Unfortunately, this was a film that looked better in the trailers when the film was being promoted, prior to its commercial release. We just caught with it thanks to a borrowed DVD and we are so happy we didn't have to pay to watch this "masterpiece".

The film, directed by Tim Story, is a rip off. It is loosely based on much better French comedies created by Luc Besson. This one here gives credit to Ben Garant as its writer.

"Taxi" is an exercise in how not to make movies. The casting of Jimmy Fallon for the main role was a poor judgment by whoever decided to give the comedian this plum job; he is not even funny! The opening sequence involving the undercover operation where Washburn fakes to be a Cuban mafioso, shows that Mr. Fallon needs to reconsider future appearances in films.

Queen Latifah, a charismatic performer, is handicapped having to act next to an inane actor that ruins some of her best moments in the movie. Ann Margaret must have been feeling desperate when she agreed to appear in this film as the lush mother of Washburn, but on second thought, it makes perfect sense that with a son like him, drinking is the only way this woman can go through life.

Watch it at your own risk!

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16 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
Boys will like it but the rest of us will be turned off by the lack of imagination, spark or anything resembling originality, 4 December 2004
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

Washburn is an undercover cop who, after yet another job ending in a crashed car, has his license taken away and put back on the street. Meanwhile cycle courier Belle has finally gotten her taxi license and is preparing her souped up vehicle for the New York City streets. When a bank robbery in progress is called in, Washburn commandeers Belle's cab and gets involved in a high-speed chase with a group of Brazilian supermodels in a red BMW. Thrown off the case by the FBI, Washburn wants to catch the gang to get his job back, while Belle agrees to help so that she can get her taxi out of lockup.

I quite liked the original for what it was so I decided to give this film a try to see if it could manage to be fun. I'll be honest and say that the trailer attracted me because it had car chases, a bit of a laugh and some faux-lesbian teasing – there, gone are my 'art-house' credentials! I hoped that these elements could be kept fun and that the film could have a spark to it in some area that would raise it above the genre and actually make it fun to watch. Sadly I was wrong and my worries about the effort put into this film were realized in the first few minutes of the film where a skinny person on a bike is revealed to be Belle – even though their body shapes could not be more different! With this lack of attention to detail I did not have high hopes but I figured I was being picky and tried to get past it. However from here on in everything is exactly as you would expect – lacking imagination and effort in almost every regard.

The plot is nonsense but to pick on that is to be too demanding because none of us expected anything too cohesive or logical but suffice to say that attempts to build stories around the characters are all flat and uninteresting. However what I did need from the film was action, excitement, comedy and spark. The action is OK but nothing special – the use of CGI cars to make impossible stunts really takes away from the impact of the action, while the limitations of the busy streets means that the car chases are very tightly cut and never feel real and impressive. This reduces how excited the audience can feel and me and the other 15 people in the cinema sat rather impassive for most of the action scenes. With this OK, then the comedy needed to match it to produce an OK film, but it didn't. Not at all. The comedy is partly based on that wonderful comic device – that black people are cool and sassy while white people are geeky and uptight. Oh, how I never tire of seeing racial stereotypes enforced in the name of comedy. With this old chestnut wheeled out again, the rest of the comedy falls into line and I never really laughed more than once. The button pushing and lack of imagination continues with the robbers themselves who are nothing more than legs and skin who are there to attract an idiotic and salivating male audience (ie – me) on the promise of titillation. They don't deliver this very well at all and the scenes where they try to feel cheap, tacky and exploitative instead of sexy and fresh.

The cast are lumbered with the material but they don't do as much as perhaps they could have done to make it better. Fallon is annoying and geeky – simply filling the 'white' cliché in the 'cool black/geeky white' combo. Latifah continues to just play the easy ethnic cliché stuff for every penny.

I don't know if she is like this in real life but I must admit that I do find her ethnic cliché to be lazy and rather offensive – her smart-mouth, impatience and speed to violence has been in many of her last few roles and I don't think it is the best use of her position, but then again if you put money in front of me then I'd probably do the same. Esposito is pretty wasted in a thankless role before being used as a piece of meat for the sake of selling the film to the male audience (yes, yes, I admit it). The models are nothing but eye candy and I didn't think they did it very well.

Overall this is not a terrible film because it will appeal to boys and young teenagers with its noisy mix of unattainable leggy women, fast cars, basic humour and racial stereotyping; the target audience for this is shown even in the cut – which removes a use of the MF word so that it can get to a younger audience. For me though I found it lacking any sort of imagination, spark or wit and instead just took the easy line of cliché, stereotype and noise. It will appeal to some, but not to me, and it was an effort to get to the end.

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