Colombiana

Directed with an appropriately heavy hand for a guy named Olivier Megaton, the trailer for the forthcoming Colombiana offers all sorts of angles for interpretation: The story of Zoe Saldana’s traumatized, vengeance-seeking lady assassin hails from co-writer Luc Besson, so in that sense it’s like a return to his glory days of La Femme Nikita or The Professional—maybe even a spiritual sequel, if you prefer.  In between all the gunplay, Saldana works her wiles on Michael Vartan, so it’s also like a much louder, more expensive Alias. And of course, it’s another entry in the era of the female badass, with Saldana’s lollipop-sucking femme fatale slotting easily alongside current kittens with machine guns ranging from Helen Mirren in Red to the ladies of Sucker Punch. However you want to spin it, Colombiana looks like a stylized sex and violence smorgasbord as Saldana takes out bad guy after bad guy, all in an effort to never forget where she came from, which she should never do. Forget where she came from, that is. Never forget where you came from.