Thanks to film-making duo Pierre Morel and Luc Besson, were back in Paris for more inane violence, untrustworthy females and big action sequences.

The pairs acclaimed Taken was a surprise success as it came with raw emotion that a father naturally feels if his daughter was taken in such ugly circumstances. From Paris With Love is a true Besson picture postcard because it captures all that the mildly misogynistic (generally depicting women as moral-lacking inpiduals) and action-obsessed French director is all about. But this time its so bad, its quite amusing, and its partly due to the slack-jawed comments from John Travoltas character, Charlie Wax, an angry, bald, goatee-wearing CIA agent with a limited vocabulary much like his Pelham 123 character, actually.

Travolta gleefully gets to be very naughty indeed and is clearly having a ball as Wax, able to shoot his big mouth off and even bigger array of guns (including a bazooka). Thank goodness, is all we can say, because after the first, rather dull 20 minutes of the film, we need an injection of something to keep our interest levels from dwindling. Much as co-star Jonathan Rhys Meyers was a raving success in The Tudors with an undeniable presence, he is a bit unbelievable and slightly miscast as the dopey but intense James Reece, a Special Services wannabe who can make the grade to the big time, if he Waxes lyrical about his new partner, keeping him sweet on his demolition derby around the French capital. Yes, its the same old story: Both men respectively discover and learn to appreciate each others good qualities, whilst shooting and spraying an impressive array of bullets all over the shop. They even try to convince us of their intellect with one triumphant last chess game before catching a flight. Anything set in Paris needs a touch of glamour, though. This is injected by the sizzling Kasia Smutniak as Caroline, truly wasted here, and definitely a strong contender for the next Bond girl, complete with a meatier script to work with, hopefully.

As the trailer shows, this film is about the explosions and your general run-of-the-mill action stuff with a head-pounding car cash that allows Wax to deliver his funniest and corniest line of the film, Welcome to Paris, baby, like some Schwarzenegger reject from Terminator – seriously demonstrating the basic nature of the script. The stunts whiff of dj vu, but we are happy to lap them up in the midst of the chase, and watching Travolta/Wax wobbling around, half hanging out of a car sunroof holding his big gun, whilst said chase is going on, is simply hilarious in itself.

Thumbs up for mindless (entertaining?) violence, Travolta, sexy Smutniak and Paris carnage, but nothing particularly new or memorable, especially once the curtain comes down on its cinema run.