听 "Queen Latifah is as likeable as ever," but even she couldn't save comedy caper Taxi from crashing at the box office. Meanwhile co-star Jimmy Fallon failed to make an impact with either critics or moviegoers as a bumbling New York cop who enlists Latifah's cabbie to help him scupper a series of bank robberies. While director Tim Story failed to recapture the magic of the 1998 French original, this Extended Edition attempts to fill in some of the gaps.
Stop That Cab!
It's difficult to pinpoint the differences between the extended version and theatrical cut (also contained on this disc). Ultimately the film is as clumsy and unfunny as it was the first time around, but takes longer to end. The only sure way to tell where footage has been inserted is to compare both versions of the same director's commentary. The extended track is punctuated by minutes of long silence where the film deviates from the theatrical cut. Of course that's also confirmation that the director had nothing at all to do with this padding up.
His commentary only hints around the problems affecting the movie. He notes that "we were extremely rushed in preparing it" and talks about Latifah's role which was originally written for a man. Given what he calls her "feminine strength", Story reveals that very little changes were made to accommodate her.
There's more redundant footage in four deleted scenes. Fallon does have one good moment though, abusing his authority as a Central Park patrolman by quietly terrorising a small child. At least it's vaguely amusing.
Fallon is much more overbearing in The Meter's Runnin', which finds cast and crew on location in New York. However, he does hit the nail on the head when talking about the deleted footage: "You bought the DVD for that?" he asks. "You wasted 20 bucks!" He's right. Latifah hardly gets a word in edgewise as Fallon hogs the camera for the best part of 20 minutes. And in case you haven't had enough of his mugging, another featurette is dedicated solely to this enterprise. He jokes about one of the DVD extras being "an eight hour ordeal" of getting his haircut, but to be honest, five minutes of this is almost on a par.
Fallon Down
Stealing the show from Fallon in a Comedy Central Special are Lieutenants Jim Dangle and Travis Jr - closeted gay cops from way out West - who take to the streets of New York 脿 la Midnight Cowboy to interview the stars of Taxi. They're the kind of people who use the phrase "loosey-goosey" and throw out statements like, "This movie blows Smokey And The Bandit away." But the best part is their stony silence when Fallon cracks a lame joke about going Dutch with a girl. Something about wooden shoes...
Lights, Camera, Blue Screen is a dull featurette hosted by visual effects supervisor Ray McIntyre. He enters into a long-winded explanation about the process of practical effects and CG layering that went into creating the film's stunt sequences, which makes five minutes feel like an hour.
But perhaps the most redundant featurette on this DVD - and perhaps all of DVD history - is the Beautiful Criminals montage. It plays like a big-budget tampon commercial, except it's obviously geared towards the lads with its lingering slow-mo shots of supermodel bank robber Giselle Bundchen exerting herself with high-octane posing. Sadly this DVD is just as vacuous. In the end it leaves as big an impression as Bundchen's butt on a sofa cushion.
EXTRA FEATURES
