I may not have a lot of money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills that helps me recognize a bad Hollywood movie cash-grab when I see it. It’s pretty disgusting when a Hollywood studio makes a sequel just because the first movie makes money. I get that studios want to make lots of money and I have nothing against that, but it’s ridiculous and greedy to do it at the expense of a filmmaker’s artistic integrity. That is exactly how I felt back in 2012 when I watched Taken 2. The movie was awful and did not come even close to living up to being as solid as the first Taken movie. With Taken 3(stylized as Tak3n because EuropaCorp execs are obviously time traveling teenage girls from the year 2001) I wasn’t expecting much although it kind of turned out to have good news and bad news. The good news is that it isn’t as bad as Taken 2. The bad news is that it isn’t even close to being as great as the first Taken.
In Taken 3 Liam Neeson is back as ex-government operative Bryan Mills. Mills gets accused of a murder he didn’t commit or witness and now he has the LAPD coming for him. He has to figure out who really committed the murder while also protecting his daughter who he feels is in danger once again years later after being kidnapped in Paris.
Liam Neeson is a really good actor. Ever since the first Taken movie though he has been showing up in more and more action movies. I’m not against an old guy being in action movies, but in this one it really felt like Liam Neeson was just too old for the part. In the physical scenes he seemed slow and just looked too fake which is one of the biggest things that filmmakers should try to avoid. If I can’t suspend my disbelief then how in the hell am I going to enjoy your movie? Forrest Whitaker is in the movie as the lead LAPD investigator and obviously does good because he is a solid actor, but not even he can save this movie from being less than mediocre.
The biggest problem I had with the movie is that it just mixes plots together that we have seen in other better movies. I think it is fine for movies to borrow from other movies especially if they mix different plots and do interesting things with them, but here in Taken 3 they just don’t do anything interesting or original with any of the concepts they borrow from. They use a lot from The Fugitive (1993) and I can tell they are trying to do something with it, but it just isn’t really clicking.
I won’t say that this movie was a total dud. Like I said earlier it was better than Taken 2 although not by too much. I’m afraid the filmmakers just set the bar way too high with the first Taken. In the first movie the scenes come in and out flawlessly with superb action sequences that were filmed so well that it kind of set a new standard for all other modern action movies. In Taken 3 I watched the action scenes and it just doesn’t seem to be filmed with the same skill. I’m thinking that is mostly because the director of the first Taken, Pierre Morel did not direct this movie or the previous Taken 2. It’s really a shame because both Taken 2 and 3 have made more money, but the problem is that most of that return was due to the surprising critical success of the first Taken. I can only hope that we don’t see a Taken 4 or I guess what they will probably call T4ken. Gross.
Dave’s Rating- ★★(2) out of ★★★★★(5)
