u/KittySharkWithAHat

I was attracted to this film as the plot had similarities to the popular scifi Sunshine released in 2007. In this movie a space mission is trying to prematurely trigger a gigantic solar flare before it can fry the earth. There are elements on board the mission trying to sabotage the whole thing because corporations are assholes to the point of deliberately causing global extermination.

You watch this film and it kind of has the earmarks of a low budget movie, but it has a very surprising cast. Charlton Heston. Jack Palance. And Peter Boyle. Tim Matheson (Animal House) is the captain in charge of the mission.

Another surprising feature is the outer space shots look like something that belongs in a bigger blockbuster movie. Also I thought the plot was a little more believable than Sunshine's, where they make a bomb big enough to prematurely trigger a solar flare rather than Sunshine's plot to restart the whole darn sun.

The story goes back and forth from earth to space as Tim Matheson's son has escaped from a military school to try to see his dad before he leaves on what most people think is a suicide mission. This leads on an adventure through a nomadic post apocalyptic looking earth. The story on the spaceship is peppered with suspense of people dealing with sabotage, killing off characters almost like a slasher film. I think there's elements here that may have inspired the movie Sunshine, which has much slicker production and effects but kind of a stumbling plotline.

Over all I say it's worth a watch. Good film.

I recommend this, I definitely DO NOT recommend the English remake in 2004 with Queen Latifa.

Recently I saw some news the French actor Sam Naceri, one of the creators of District 13 was making a comeback with a new sequel to this Taxi franchise coming out this year and I never saw any of them. This is kind of like a French version of Fast and Furious with extremely high speed car chases with highly unlikely superhuman driving abilities.

In Taxi 1998 what I saw a very refreshing light-hearted comedy the likes of which you just don't see in modern films. It takes some jabs at French bureaucracy and law enforcement but none of it is mean. The main character Daniel starts the story as someone who has been waiting several years to get his taxi license, in the meantime he's been working as a pizza deliverer to basically memorize every street and corner of Marseille France. And he's been working on a very special car, a highly modified Peugeot 406 which I personally mistook for a super rally version of a Mitsubishi EVO. (He's does race against the EVO in another film). The plot, the main character Daniel is trapped in a situation where his taxi license is threatened to be taken from him and he has to help a police officer catch German bank robbers who are impossible to catch and driving suped-up Mercedes.

Marseille France is a gorgeous backdrop. All the characters are endearing. The action sequences are out of this world and as I understand it as the sequels went out, just like Fast and the Furious, they kept stepping it up making it bigger every time. So if you want to sit back, eat popcorn, have a laugh and watch cars go fast I recommend this film.