Some things are probably best left in their country of origin - Gallic rock music, Parisian manners and Charles Aznavour.

It would also have been nice if France had closed its borders to this stuttering remake of Luc Besson's record-grossing 1991 box office smash.

Queen Latifah plays Belle Williams, New York's fastest cabbie, while Saturday Night Live stalwart Jimmy Fallon plays crap cop Andy Washburn.

Possibly the Big Apple's worst driver, he's busted from the force after totalling a couple of cars and screwing up a stake-out.

Reduced to Shank's Pony, he hitches a ride with Belle to a bank... where a gang of German, Wonder-bra-clad vixens are staging a hold-up.

Getting away after a car-chase which involves Belle's souped-up cab skidding around a lot of corners, the catwalk culprits disappear into thin air.

However, Belle knows there's only one branch of Kwik-Fit where they can get the shot-out tyres of their getaway BMW replaced... so she and Andy lie in wait.

From the opening frame there's a nagging doubt that this isn't going to deliver when a lithe BMX courier flips off the side of lorries and over gaps in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Skidding into the despatch office, it turns out to be none other than Queen Latifah, a lady whose chunker build doesn't suggest a life delivering parcels on two wheels.

Credibility is further stretched with the decision to cast Fallon as a comedy lead - he's up there with talentless twerp Rob Schneider in a humour vacuum.

Too many embarrassing gaps which should be filled with uncontrolled laughter offer up nothing more than an uncomprehending silence.

There's decent knockabout farce in this, a clumsy, mis-timed comedy vehicle running on empty with four flat tyres. This taxi is rank.

Tim Evans