From Paris with Love is an odd mixture of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Rush Hour, and The In-Laws, in which an odd couple are thrown together for mayhem and the occasional laugh. Aside from the far-less-than-extraordinary acting performances, dialogue that is lackadaisical at best, and an almost undecipherable plot, the flick itself relies much more on showy action sequences with heavily overused slow-motion special effects than on any kind of storyline.

After a lengthy opening sequence that's basically an ad for a Cadillac Escalade, we learn that James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) works in the U.S. Embassy in Paris. As a sideline, he performs tasks for an unnamed espionage agency, presumably the CIA. He'd love to be a real spy, but as we see when he repeatedly tries to bug a French official's office with a transmitter and some chewing gum, he's a bit out of his depth. He has a beautiful girlfriend Caroline (Kasia Smutniak) who likes to model fashionable clothes and fix rooftop dinners looking out on the Parisian skyline. Enters a loose cannon Charlie Wax (John Travolta) whom Reece has been assigned to be his partner in Paris, and he's soon trying to keep up with Wax.

As mindless action, this is not fun enough. A scene might begin quietly but Wax then opens fire - seemingly at random - only to be proved right that they are surrounded by deadly enemy agents. At one point, Wax has Reece carry a large Chinese vase filled with cocaine, which only adds to the incongruity of a plot that involves drugs, terrorism, and double agents. By the time we get to the real conspiracy Wax is trying to uncover, logic is longer important. We're only trying to get from one shootout to the next, wondering if Reece has what it takes to be the field agent he wants to be. However, any ostensible ground for a reason to shoot anyone vanishes as soon as Wax appears, and we are continually urged to think of his gun-slinging, cursing, chortling, hair-piece-free character as cool.

Travolta's unflappable character is strictly a flick fantasy, and so when there's an arch reference to his role in Pulp Fiction, it's a wink that the audience can enjoy as Charlie Wax has been built with a back story and the potential for future adventures. Rhys Meyers gets to react to the outrageous goings on and finally comes to share Wax's point-of-view. The big plot twist is preposterous, but Rhys Meyers bravely perseveres as if this is one of his more serious roles. Oddly enough, though, it is not the behavior of James, but Charlie's actions, that save both of their lives multiple times throughout the film. It's clear that the mission at hand is the only thing ever on Charlie's mind but the same cannot be said for James. Although James is interested in completing the task they were instructed to do, whatever that may be, he seems to be much more interested in going home and going back to his fiancee. She is what he is ultimately thinking about in everything they do, to the point where James would sacrifice their mission in order to save his relationship with Caroline.

The mere draw here is the action, with lots of shootings, several explosions and a final showdown which will no doubt give offense to several groups. From Paris With Love is a violent action fantasy that can border on the cartoonish. Anyone who has no use for such things may safely give it a pass.