If Luc Besson's latest goes into absurd overdrive, it does so with entertaining finesse.

Begins with the materials of a violent thriller but transcends them with the story of the heroine's transformation.

[Besson] seems to like playing off the generic, though he probably thinks of it as working with the mythic, the classic.

Luc Besson applies his usual slick stylistics to this durable French thriller .