User reviews

Lots of fun , laughs and car races . This thrilling as well as humorous motion picture blends action packed , car pursuits , comedy , shootouts , rip roaring and turns out to be pretty amusing . Displays nonstop action and is extremely bemusing and hilarious . The movie is developed in Marseille , as usual , there foul-mouthed Cabbie (Sami Narcery) join forces with a bungler police inspector , a loser named Emilien (Frederic Diefenthal) . A gang of thieves calling themselves the Santa Claus band are committing robbing , and the police can't keep up . Police Captain Gilbert (Bernard Farcy) is distracted by a Chinese journalist (Bai Ling) writing a story on his group , detective Emilien's sweetheart (Emma Sjöberg as Petra) has just announced that she's pregnant, and taxi driver Daniel is in the midst of a relationship crisis with Lilly Bertineau (Marion Cotillard) who is also pregnant . After a string of errors in which the thieves outsmart the police time and time again with a journalist there to record it all , the sympathetic Cabbie Daniel and his super-taxi go into action . Out to stop a new gang disguised as Santa Claus, Emilien and Daniel must also handle major changes in their personal relationships .

The film displays action , comedy , intrigue , tongue in check and results to be entertaining , though predictable . There are chases galore in breathtaking velocity and with impressive finale race cars , causing wreak havoc and destruction , being realized by magnificent stunts and including excellent visual effects . From the start to the ending the action pace is fast moving , provides fast and furious entertainment with spectacular scenes . It's a run of the mill action-comedy film but from the initial to the final the fast movement and amusement is unstopped . Breathtaking scenes when take place alpine skiing , parachuting images and others in James Bond style . The laughters and chuckles are varied and giggles are based about diverse characters and differences of the protagonists , but they are the unlikeliest pals . The film is thrilling and humorous at times but is also ridiculous and embarrassing . However sometimes is fresh and diverting and on a couple of memorable occasions, it's frankly delicious . Likable and ordinary cast as Frédéric Diefenthal , Emma Wiklund , Bernard Farcy , Marion Cotillard , Sami Narcery ; even though they play a romantic couple that looks the same age, Samy Naceri was born 15 years before Marion Cotillard . Special appearance Sylvester Stallone, who appears in a cameo at the beginning of the movie, is dubbed for the French version . Lively and atmospheric musical score adjusted to the action by DJ Kore and DJ Skalp , composed by means of synthesizer . Glamorous and colorful cinematography by Gerard Sterin .

This French buddy-cop movie is lavishly produced by great producer and director Luc Besson and professionally directed by Gérard Krawczyk (Wasabi , Fanfan La Tulipe , Heroines) . The original titled Taxi (1998) by Gerard Pires was followed by three sequels : Taxi 2 (2000), Taxi 3 (2003) y Taxi 4 (2007) , most of them directed by Gerard Krawczyc and same actors and an American version with Queen Lafitah , Jimmy Fallon and directed by Tim Story . The flick will appeal to adrenaline lovers and those young people looking for amusing and strong emotions . It's a must see for the cars buffs and Taxi series enthusiasts .

Yes, it is funny but I am getting a little tired of watching the same thing the third time around. I like the first one because it was fresh and different... But, Taxi 3 is just a copy of the previous 2 with a little new twist... I hope there will be no Taxi 4 coming out any time soon...

The third chapter in the “Taxi” series is a definite step down from the second. Director Gérard Krawczyk and screenwriter Luc Besson have managed to introduce some new elements to the franchise (a pre-credits Stallone cameo, a Bond-style title sequence, a gigantic 4 X 4 crashing everything on its path, bank robbers disguised as Santa Clauses, future parenthood, the action moving to the Swiss Alps in the last 20 minutes and Daniel's taxi functioning as a snowmobile, etc.) to justify making this sequel. However, Besson's script remains very thin (the film barely fills up 83 minutes, long closing credits included), and the absence of a climactic set-piece is especially disappointing. The characters still have appeal, and the introduction of exotic beauty Bai Ling is a plus; on the other hand, those expecting Emma Sjöberg to get involved in the action in the same way she was in "Taxi 2" should forget about it: her character is already 8 months pregnant as the movie opens. (**)

The TAXI series (this is obviously the third installment) are highly successful French movies which for mysterious reasons are never distributed in USA (or at least in Miami).

Created and produced by the legendary and admired (ex-director) Luc Besson (you remember him from masterpieces like The Professional, La Femme Nikita, The Big Blue or The Fifth Element) he managed to create a mix of action and comedy, with some of ingenuous gags, some adults jokes and plenty of action (mostly car stunts) and very mild violence and overall VERY HUMAN.

TAXI 3 tracks Emilien's (the police officer) obsession to catch a gang disguised as Santa Claus with the help of Daniel (the nuts taxi driver) both trying to overcome their conjugal issues and the pregnancy of their wives. The story is very simple (as is the movie short), so everything rest on the characters (some of them very funny and some not so) and on the impressive stunts which are really very good and a lot more realistic than the computer generated car chases of Bad Boys II.

As I said before, it is really a pity this funny movies get no distribution here. Of course Hollywood can make things like this. Technically better probably but without the natural grace and believability of this very sympathetic group of actors.

I don't think you HAVE to be a TAXI fan to like the movie. It is at least as entertaining as the first two POLICE ACADEMY movies or the third VACATION movie, and while it is not a great work it is fun to watch despite the fact that the plot is thin because the jokes work. It is certainly funnier than TORRENTE 2, and that was a blockbuster over here. Perhaps the difference is that the humour in TAXI 3 is more subtle... or maybe just not so raunchy...

Also, the short appearance by SLY is a great introduction for those who are not familiar with the characters, and he does his part well.

Of course, TRANSPORTER was a much better film (with better chase scenes through the same Marseille streets) but then that was a thriller rather than light comedy.

Definitely, this is the worst Luc Besson movie I've ever seen! I'm really disappointed after the first Taxi (pah, that was a great movie!) and the second Taxi (was more commercial than good).

Stupid story, based on the 1st part with the Mercedes-gang, now they are the Santa-gang. So what? Nothing new!

Best points in the movie: 1) The jokes with the french police 2) The last snow-scene, ok that was a little bit creative (Daniel's car gets with every part of Taxi more science-fiction-functions, now it can slide on snow!!!) 3) Of course, the music! 4) Fans of Sylvester Stallone can see him speaking french! :)

So, thats it. And at last: If you are NOT a Taxi-fan, the movie is not worth seeing it! Don't get disappointed of Luc Besson!

I've seen the Taxi I and Taxi II several years ago. Taxi I is just so so but Taxi II is a great one. It's a very funny film with good action scenes. So I got a bit excited after the release of Taxi III. The beginning is good and funny with Stallone. After that, the whole storyline is really dumb and stupid. I can't believe it is written by Luc Besson. And I think even I can make it better than Luc. Also there is no great stunt in this film. The only creative thing in this film is the taxi being changed as a sled vehicle. If it is some kind of Hollywood trash, I may accept it. As a fan of Luc Besson, I'm really disappointed. I give it a 3 out of 10.

Come on. Taxi 3 is just giving what it was made for : FUN. When you see a movie like that, you don't expect a serious story with a lot of tremendous though. Just watch it and enjoy... I understand that it may be a problem with the translation in english. Maybe the jokes aren't as good as they are in french (even they aren't exceptional, they're good enough to make you laugh). The story is thin. OK. But it's not badly made. A family movie to see just for fun

In fact, this amoeba of a movie really might be the very worst film I've ever seen or ever will see, and even that's being VERY generous. Now I enjoyed the first Taxi movie, which had a sense of speed and fun even if there weren't many stunts. I even enjoyed Taxi 2 in its no-brainer way despite the worse direction (different director, held over for this one for some inexplicable reason) because it had plenty of good stunts. But this film really is like the filmmakers knew they'd have a guaranteed audience no matter what so decided to spend 83 very long minutes throwing merde at the audience to see if they'd eat it. It's that bad. No: it's worse.

It starts off with some badly shot stunts ripped off from Jackie Chan's Operation Condor that lead into our hero giving a James Bond figure a lift he'll never forget. Now obviously Pierce Brosnan's contract wouldn't let him do it, but they could have tried for Timothy Dalton or even Roger Moore. I'm sure if Roge was busy they could have got George Lazenby, who's done that sort of thing before enough times. But no, the joke falls flat because they get that epitome of suave sophisticated British espionage himself, Slyvester Stallone (dubbed badly into French) to do the part. Worse is that not only is this almost the best part of the film but it has the only stunts in the whole picture. It does lead into a very, very funny one-minute send-up of the new Bond title sequences that is genuinely terrific, but once that's over, turn off at once - you will not get the next 70 minutes of your life back and you will resent it.

It's horribly wrong on every level. The two stars don't even meet for 45 minutes, and when they do the charm is replaced with whining, there are no chases or big stunts - this from a film who's only reason to exist is car stunts - and a boring plot about Chinese villains disguising themselves as rollerblading Santas to rob Marseilles' biggest bank. But in the end, they don't bother, they go to Switzerland instead. The taxi follows them, the robbers get very easily arrested and the cop goes to hospital where the girlfriend he didn't notice was pregnant for 8 months is having a baby. The end. Add terrible, horrible mistimed 'comic' relief from Bernard Farcy playing a pompous deluded chief inspector and Bai Ling horrendously made up as the most repugnant racist stereotype of Chinese whoredom (sorry, there's no other description) in a hideously misogynist part and you've got a film that manages to be dumb, boring, pointless and offensive without ever passing 'vaguely interesting' along the way. When the best joke is a dumb comic relief black cop being run over by a car he's trying to commandeer because he's black ("It's okay, I'm used to it"), you know you're in the *beep* Never have I seen a film so lazy and with so much contempt for its audience, and I've seen three Michael Bay movies. THAT bad and worse.

If you like Taxi 1 and Taxi 2, you must see Taxi 3. It isn't a perfect movie but is still funny and has good Taxi stunt scenes (speed, pursuit, braking e.t.c) like Taxi 1 and 2. The cops (police) can't drive!! (they always crash their cars and this is very funny).

It's too bad the movie is too short, but is entertaining almost all the time. I would prefer the bad guys drive cars like the Mercedes(Taxi 1) or the black Lancer Evos (Taxi 2)instead of skates. This movie never arrived to México so I watched on TV. Yes, I think Taxi 1 and 2 are better, but again, this movie (Taxi 3) is still funny. Very good actors and actress

Taxi 4 I haven't seen yet!!

I watched this movie and found it entertaining and with some good action scenes. I liked specially the beginning and the end! The beginning gives you the complete feeling that you are watching a 007 movie with less tech gadgets and more x-treme sport scenes (roller blading, mountain bike cycling, skate boarding etc.) the rollerblade stunts are awesome!.The middle part becomes a little boring with too m much dialog in personal, professional and family life scenes stealing a lot of action from the movie. what makes it bearable are some comedy lines resembling the 'pink panther' good police humor. Towards the end the action increases along with the comedy, an this movie has an all American ending, where the bad guys get busted and the cops always win. Not a bad movie, the big down is that I was not able to find it in the English version,only french was available, I had to settle for the subtitles that in my wide screen TV do not show all the way (leaving out some part of the text). Perhaps some day it'll be dubbed to English for us to fully understand the characters...

Interesting. As much as I liked Taxi II (I haven't seen the first yet), I was very disappointed by this movie and barely laughed. Most of the time I had the impression that I was as bored as the actors seemed to be throughout the movie and that they never enjoyed the movie either.

The whole story is very unimaginative; the jokes are lousy; the action scenes are poor (a show-off of what is technically possible as stunts leaving the viewer mostly indifferent); the characters have deteriorated to bad parodies.

In all, a movie you should try to avoid watching to preserve the good memories of the first movie(s).

For all you intelektuwal critics: this movie is not meant to be the subject of a 100+ pages paper, it is meant to be fun, fun, fun. And oh yes, the Taxi-series delivers again. Excellent music, supercool acting jobs all around, offbeat humor and absolutely no twelve-year-olds doing magic stuff... really, what more do you want?

To be honest, I was expecting a lot worse from the third movie based on a story barely enough for one. But the actors and jokes are still OK, and even if this can't be called a good movie, it is not such a bad "3", and it even can be fun if you take a great care not to think too much. Relax, fasten your seat belt, and you may enjoy it. Let's just hope they won't try to make "Taxi 4"...

The silliness continues with Besson and Krawczyk and the usual gang with the addition of a couple of new faces.

In an opening number that is a parody of James Bond titles, Sylvester Stallone is featured. They go a credible job of presenting the Bond music and girls in this tribute.

Another addition to the cast is the incredible beautiful Bai Ling (Anna and the King, The Lost Empire), who is ostensible writing a story on the police department and has tongues hanging all over the department.

This time they are looking for the Santa Claus gang, who taunt the police by telling them when they will strike. While this is going on Émilien fails to realize that his wife Petra is pregnant and Daniel is so busy with his cars, that he doesn't have time to spend with Lilly again, who is also pregnant. That is just too hard to believe! Despite references to Bond, and a story taken somewhat from Lethal Weapon 4, it is another funny romp, this time through the streets of Paris, and over the mountains to Switzerland.

I can't wait to see what they come up with in Taxi 4.

Continuing my plan to watch every Sly Stallone movie in his filmography in order, I come to his cameo in Taxi 3.

Plot In A Paragraph: A gang of thieves calling themselves the Santa Claus Gang are running riot, and the police are nowhere near catching them. Police Captain Gilbert is distracted by a Chinese reporter writing a story on his squad, detective Emilien's wife has just announced that she's pregnant, and taxi driver Daniel is in the midst of a relationship crisis. After a string of mistakes in which the thieves outsmart the police several times with a reporter there to report on it all, Daniel steps in to help out.

The tile sequence is fun, as its basically a rip off various James Bond titles

Director Gerard Krawczyk had directed writer Luc Besson's last movie 'Wasabi' starring Jean Reno. Funnily enough, in the street market, you can clearly see behind Émilien in at least two shots a poster for 'Wasabi'

Stallone briefly pops up for a taxi ride in the first couple of mins.

Taxi 3 : Here is a film that bears well its name : Yes absolutely it is the THIRD sequel of the same track race between the foreign Wicked bandits and the dumb French police helped by the turbo-charged taxi driver. After 2 attempts, you might expect a bit of "ageing" and maturation of this eye-catching concept, well except the the fun credits at the beginning and the surprise appearance of Mr Stallon himself, there is nothing really new :

• a simplistic story-line - a demagogue & super-caricatural description of the French police - a crude humor - not so impressive track race - action scenes with barely no action - pityful dialogues - actors who are never really exploited - no surprise happy ending

Apparently Mr Besson wanted to make a comedy that does not take itself seriously : well if you are not too hard to please concerning the subtlety of the humor you might get a satisfaction but it's not enough to save this farce because the supposed action scenes are nothing more than boring and uninspired. Furthermore, the grotesque is too serious not to be taken seriously. So you are left with the story, but it the carbon copy of the precedents except that the Chinese have replaced the Japanese and the Germans as the shrewd bandits...

It's a pity that Mr Besson the producer/writer does not have the same standard of excellence as Mr Besson the director. This film could have been a funny piece of popular entertainment but it was too botched up to live up to this title.

To sum up : a ludicrous popular comedy made of crude gags + no action action scenes in the wake of the worn out Taxi series. (4 out of 10)

By the time Taxi 3 will, for whatever reason, roll onto your screens right before your eyes, after having seen the first two in this laborious French franchise, you'll only be as tired of it as those playing the lead roles look of their characters. The film is a limp; dull; daft; repetitive; plodding piece, a wondering, staggering film dragging its content along like a Neanderthal from many-a century ago might drag its knuckles along as it journeyed from A to B. Thin on plot and character but high on spectacle; moping and chasing, the series takes a turn at stage three to less-so resemble a Ferrari and more-so begin to dramatically resemble a beaten up 80s Lada. Like a Rickshaw driver at the end of a very busy day, this series has officially stretched its premise and wholly run out of puff; and I wouldn't be so sour about things if it'd brought about better products out of Luc Besson's Europacorp company in recent years. Sadly, the pay-cheque (and that's all Taxi 3 is) clearly went on to fund other ventures Besson has had a finger in developing since, such as the Transporter series and the Banal Banlieue 13 franchise.

The film actually beings with a mock-James Bond opening sequence, in which action man Sly Stallone is chased by a bunch of Xtreme-Sports bad guys before bumping into Daniel's (Naceri) taxi and speeding off, out running a train in the process of dodging the enemy. Cue mock-Bond title sequence, and you think to yourself that they've realised just how stupid; just how poor; just how nonsensical the franchise is in its action infused attitudes to itself that it's had to go down this route of self reflexivity. Later on, the film will fall back on similarly constructed idiot action sequences for sake of dramatic involvement, thus completely undermining its own point - if there was even one there initially.

Leads Samy Naceri and Frédéric Diefenthal look bored with their task of playing Daniel, the cab driver come good, and incompetent French copper Émilien. They look fed up, as if they didn't want to be there, as if the film was contractually bound to their starring in the first two and thus, their presence in the third film was compulsory. The two share no chemistry, as if the second time was enough time spent together doing this and now that we're onto the third outing, half the effort will suffice. One sits here and says these are the leads, the film actually centres in on Émilien and his new state of marriage with Emma Wiklund's Petra for the best part of the opening forty minutes; all the while sidelining Daniel for Émilien. Where's the star? Where's the hero from the first two? Where, with his razor wit and casual destruction of the highway code for sake of schlock laughs, is the reason these films were even popular in the first place? Where's Daniel? When he does make himself known, he's bickering with girlfriend Lilly (Cotillard, whom by this point the series needed more than she needed it following the opposite) over his obsession with his taxi and later putting pregnancy tests in his mouth.

Daniel's sidelining and Émilien's subsequent promotion sees the roles reversed from the first two, in that one is now very much in a relationship and now apparently takes the reigns for driving the film with the other single and now sidelined as a goofy supporting act. The loose plot is the same bilge recycled from the first two. These Taxi films aren't about story or narrative, they're about a bunch of thieves whom just happened to be in town; go around robbing places and/or kidnapping people and then instigate hijinks from the police officers whom call on the assistance of the aforementioned Daniel. Here, a bunch of Chinese villains take on the role of the faceless, anonymous, foreign bad guys; filling in for the Germans and the Japanese whom were both past occupants of said role. Their plan is hatched when mysterious journalist Qui (Ling Bai) turns up at the police station Émilien and the reoccurring chief character Gibert (Farcy) head operations. The thread-bear plotting is best highlighted in that if the police ever at all checked for I.D. at any point in the film, we wouldn't really have a film.

The gang disguise themselves as Santas during this Christmas period at which the film is set, an early attempt at supposedly apprehending one of these Santas in a public shopping area resulting in one of many of the film's jokes being set up and executed with an almighty clunk as we correctly predict the Santa is not, in fact, one of the robbers and, in fact, is a part of the mall's festive attractions. One thing will lead to another after a drawn out hour or so of the dull leads and their boring respective marital situations, culminating in a sequence in which one of them is tied to a chair as a red digital readout ticks down to his supposed demise. Besson and his French/Polish directorial stooge Gérard Krawczyk know they cannot lump for another road chase to round things off, so everybody tanks off to the Swiss Alps for variation set on snow and ice, and yes, somebody does indeed go through the ice in the tamest of slapstick fashions. I've no problem with chase sequences or car chase sequences, but the spectacle of them alone is not enough to invest emotion in; we need to give a damn about those involved. Like upon hearing of a new film Besson had a hand in scripting, it's just difficult to care anymore.

The movie is exactly as bad as I hoped. My first choice fully booked, I thought I might give another try to this very particular style of French cinema. The feeling you get after watching Taxi 3 is that it's shaped for the young French teenagers, floating in cars and rap music. The result is a confusion of styles, mix of fat jokes, soup of rap beats, an easygoing story that is undoubtedly a pale and far copy of the first episode.

The producers in the end have their investment back. A stupid and light French commercial movie, where you feel that money was saved in the case of a failure. What it should be... Besson is sadly too much commited with money and intellectual poverty.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that it made me laugh. Some of the jokes and scenes were easily on level with the first two movies. Add to that healthy chemistry between the two leads and you get all the ingredients needed for a good buddy-cop movie.

Unfortunately, Besson simply fails to string these bits and pieces into a coherent whole. Bad guys are the repeat from the second part, only without kung-fu and cool cars (pretty stupid decision for a movie targeting car enthusiast), and their plans and actions are complete nonsense. The whole plot seems to be there just as an excuse to throw in a bunch of obvious self-references, lame cameos (Sylvester Stalone as a secret agent?) and extreme sport mix-tapes (Besson's latest fetish, it seems).

Action scenes are the final nail on the coffin. The Taxi series never had really spectacular car chases (the closest they came was the Paris scene in Taxi II), but they at least HAD some chases. Here, it's all bikes, monster-trucks, roller-skates and skis. Daniel's taxi performs several stunts and grows a few more SF accessories, but it doesn't really have much to work with, given the opposing arsenal.

Overall, the movie has some funny bits (even more if you speak French), but the rest of it was pretty disappointing.

Warning: I'm not going to spoil anything about this movie, but I will mention things, that happened in the previous installments!

With some issues resolved from part one (and two), most famously the cop and his now girlfriend, new problems had to arise. Unfortunately they didn't quite fit the bill. Or in other words: They weren't funny enough.

With this movie it seemed that the Taxi franchise died out. It wasn't the lack of any plot (the first two didn't have any either), but the lack of good jokes and especially new ideas. The likable character remained, but you can also watch them in part one and two. And although it was a brave decision Emma S. took, by playing in this movie in her condition, it didn't really help the movie (quite the contrary).

This is probably the biggest non-event of the year. NOTHING happens in this film... Still, the opening sequence (with a cameo by Stallone) is okay (though the great stunts are badly shot) and the Bond-style credit sequence is very funny. After that though, it's a dull story about a bunch of Santa-Claus bank robbers who happen to be Chinese who plan to rob the biggest bank in Marseille. But there are no action sequences, no plot to speak of, no impressive stunts, and a last-minute change of locale from Marseille to Switzerland just to have the supertaxi driving along ski trails. There isn't even a climactic stunt sequence to speak of. Luc Besson specializes in making really bad mainstream entertainment which doesn't even obey the rules of the genre, replacing them with lame banter between the leads and some half-hearted gags ridiculing the police. Leave after the credits, there's really nothing worth staying for.