Welcome Back!
I have a few movies backlogged but because of my insanely busy schedule this week I havent been able to review them. I'll get to them soon enough.
Until then I figure I'll crank out a brutally honest review of Taken 3. Because I just got home from it. I'm still fuming.
..and yeah, Spoilers
Movie Review: Taken 3
Pros:
Ever since the first movie, Liam Neeson has been a badass. each movie he's in is a decent action thriller with a damn good leading man.
He continues to be a damn good leading man. and he's accompanied by a pretty good opponent in Forrest Whitaker's Detective. Smart and intriguing with enough character to hold focus away from Neeson.
Cons:
Yep it's one of those kind of reviews.
First off this story is a total step down from even the thoroughly mediocre second movie. It completely sidesteps the whole Revenge storyline they set up in the previous one. They had a good concept sitting right in front of them. First was Neeson coming after Kim, and killing a Russian guy. second was the Russian guy's father getting revenge. They mentioned that he has more sons. but in this... No sons. Instead we're subjected to a thoroughly idiotic side story about Neeson's ex Wife's Husband and his (coincidentally) Russian Spetsnaz business partner.
I mean seriously? You're going to kill the ex wife ad not give that to a remotely important character? I mean at least we got the ex wife and husband out of the story. now to kill Kim and we'll be all set for Neeson to just lay around listening to show tunes and drinking mojitos.
Anyway, the story in this one is total generic trash. They took the brilliant first movie and threw it into the bargain bin. no thanks to Director Olivier Megaton. One of the single worst action directors out there. The sheer amount of shots he throws at you in action scenes is nauseating. I tried counting in one of the chase scenes (yes it bothered me that much that it took me out of the movie) I got up to about 30 in 10 seconds and gave up. this guy and his slapdash cinematographer throw so many random images on screen that you probably miss about half of them. It's a painfully lazy way to shoot an action movie.
It even shows in the writing. There are whole parts of the movie that were obviously only there to set up a generic plot device. For example late in the movie Neeson is going to kill generic Can't-shoot-gun-straight spetsnaz bad guy and instead of leaving his daughter in the safest place he knows he brings her along. leaves her in the truck with the husband and one of his special agent friends. Now not only was there absolutely no reason for her to be there but the husband just happens to kidnap her (again) and run away.
It's movies like this that make me seriously hate the way Hollywood handles series. If your tag line reads "It Ends Here" you're making the final god damned chapter, not one that means nothing.
Final Verdict: 12
Liam Neeson is worth 12 points
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