Taken and Returned for No Refund

Liam Neeson takes to the screen in this big time flop of an action movie. Calling on Jack Bauer (‘open a socket Chloe’), and his Qui-Gon Jedi force powers to reclaim his daughter which he lost sometime in her childhood. The daughter, who appears physically unable to move anywhere without running (or running at all for that matter) is kidnapped by Albanians. Suddenly the family that he lost, and subsequently got shut out of wants him back for use of his ‘very particular set of skills’. Through his disturbing obsession with photographs, he figures out who took his daughter. That person subsequently gets run over by a truck (best part of the movie). Through a unfollowable and inane sequence of events included a jeep race through a god damn huge construction yard, shooting a ex-friends wife in the shoulder, uncovering a bribery scandal in the French police, saving a pop star, trying to buy a hooker, and racking up a body count of at least 30 he rescues his daughter for the sultan.
As an action movie it included the classic characteristics. Action too fast for the eyes to follow. Reliable two car chases. High body count. And voices deeper and more stressed than they need be. Its big downfall was that a) Liam Neeson is not Jack Bauer or Borne or James bond, and b) the plot was too predictable. We knew that he had to get his daughter back, and it was pretty probable that the daughter’s friend would die. Now redo the movie where the daughter dies. That’s a twist I want to see. And make the cause because she can’t manage to run in any measurable form or style.

2 comments:

  1. You are being completely biased and exaggerating. The action sequences were standard with any other action movie that has come out in the past 5 years. The story was not as predictable as you claim, yes we know how it starts and where it will end but the story of how it gets there is not what most expect. A movie tells a story from beginning to end, if you don't want to know the middle then don't see it and then waste our time with your bias review. And how can you claim that "Liam Neeson is not ... James Bond", comparing apples to oranges is something you should have learned not to do in primary school; Liam Neeson, actor... Jack Bauer, character... James Bond, character played by multiple actors; none should be compared to each other. And fix your spelling and grammar.

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  2. I'm going to have to agree with Mercury Studio's here. The only unpredictable moment in the entire movie was Neeson shooting his friends wife, causing a "flesh wound," as he so quickly diagnosed. The comparisons are real, you can say that Neeson played a wanna be Bond or Bauer character in the movie. The point is if you walk away from a movie and can't remember the main characters name, was it that good?

    Also if you read a blog and pick up the grammar and spelling issues, and miss the fact that it is a solid review, you are the one being bias.

    Furthermore, I wanted to see what happened in the middle, but every move was, as stated earlier, predictable.

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