Thursday, 22 January 2015

TAKEN 3: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

 
You know how The Hangover Part III didn't actually feature a "hangover", well the third in the series of Taken movies also doesn't feature anyone being "taken". This is a little better than the last Hangover film however that's not really saying much.

Liam Neeson returns as the former CIA operative who still has an unnatural obsession with his daughter, a thing for his ex-wife and struggles with grasping an American accent and saying words like Bagel. This time he remains in America but still manages to punch some Europeans in the throat as he is framed for his wife's murder and has to go on the run from the police and protect the only thing he has left in his life: his daughter.

The original Taken revitalised Liam Neeson's career and moved him from Schindler's List to Liam's Fists and made him an action star for the new milenium, and as great Taken was it has lead to almost every film Neeson has done since feeling like a different version of Taken. The series introduces Forest Whitaker as a cop assigned to hunting Neeson down and he does his usual quirky performance which in some ways comes off like the parody he did of himself in American Dad complete with weird elastic band fetish and new found bagel obsession.

It's directed by Olivier Megaton, which sounds just like the name Michael Bay wishes he could change it to via the Department of Name Changes, he made third (and blandest) Transporter film and directed the last Taken movie. The action is good, but nothing we haven't seen before ! It's almost an action by numbers scenario, with the exception of one very inventive way of taking the elevator.

There's something really creepy about a father knowing all the movements of his daughter regardless of the fact she's a fully grown adult now. I mean seriously, does your Dad know the kind of yogurt you pick up on the way to College on some random Tuesday? If so, report him that sounds dangerous.

This film does get lazy in many respects often not bothering to explain how Neeson escapes some impossibly tight situations. And I'm not kidding you when I say that his car is pushed off a cliff whilst he is inside, rolls down the hill leaving a crumpled mess only to explode in spectacular fashion when it hits the ground, only to have him walk back up the hill in the next scene almost totally unscathed. It does go some way to explaining how he survived this but it still stretches your bullshit-meter. Another letdown is the villain in the film, who is unfortunately too obvious just based on the casting alone, the fact that the twist takes so long to reveal itself is frustrating enough but when it finally happens you're like "we know, everyone saw that coming just punch him in the throat and kill him already."

Fingers crossed this is the last in the series and it doesn’t have a Live Free or Die Taken and A Good Night to Take Hard still in the pipeline. Let Neeson go out with the dignity that Bruce Willis never could.

Taken 3 gets Two out of Five punches to a European’s throat.

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