The action genre is usually tough for me to enjoy because the plots are typically awful, the acting is usually second-rate, and the whole thing ends up being done with a wink to the audience. I hate "winking" unless it's done in a great comedy. A good example of this problem would be the difference between the original "Terminator" and the follow-ups. The original was excellent sci-fi but the next ones turned the Terminator into a wisecracking, killing machine. Yeah, I know those were sci-fi and not action.
"From Paris With Love" is that rare bird that manages to balance a decent story with outstanding action scenes and it gives us a new, near-cartoon-character good-guy killer in Charlie Wax (John Travolta). Wax wisecracks and slaughters multiple bad guys at a time, at a rate that would cause great envy to the various karate experts and Bruce Willis-types that have come before him. He even holds his wisecracking own with Willis' character in the original "Die Hard". This is no easy task. Many have tried. A scant few have succeeded.
James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a low-level assistant to a diplomat in France. He wants to be a bigger fish in the pond of international intrigue and he gets his chance when he becomes Wax's partner, and the two of them set out to slaughter everyone who gets in their way. Actually, Reece is along for the ride because this is a Travolta vehicle and it showcases him in a way we have never quite seen him before.
By the time the blood has stopped flowing, this one-sided buddy picture has managed to give us our money's worth in both action and levity. I usually detest sequels and would probably hate if they tried to recapture this sensibility again but as long as Travolta is willing and a director as good as Pierre Morel can be retained again, I'd plunk down some cash to go for another ride.
