Quite Taken...with Liam Neeson

Try to imagine Jason Bourne tackling a human trafficking ring, Law and Order: SVU style. You know how he'd do it: outwitting the bad guys, beating everyone senseless, limping through his pain, and driving unsafely through very crowded cities. Age Jason about twenty years and give him a cute, naive, teenage daughter, and all of a sudden, you've got Pierre Morel's taut action flick, Taken.

The ever-reliable Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, a retired "preventer," whose devotion to his government post broke up his marriage to Lenore (played as essence of bitch by Famke Janssen) and left him longing for a closer bond with his lovely daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). So to patch up the fractured family dynamic, Bryan has moved closer to his ex-wife and kid to try to be the daddy his job wouldn't let him be. The man does his best to be a good father: buys Kim a thoughtful birthday gift, encourages her dreams of being a singer, taking her birthday photos on his cheap disposable camera, and tries to keep her out of trouble. But none of that is good enough for silly Kim or her hag of a mother. Oh no. Somebody thinks it's a good idea to ship off two attractive American girls to live in Paris for the summer without adult supervision. With all those years doing shady stuff for the government, Bryan knows better, but Lenore bullies him and Kim cries him into giving his permission to send his only daughter abroad.

So off goes Kim with her slutbag gal pal Amanda (Katie Cassidy). Because she's a slutbag, Amanda doesn't think twice about lying to her best friend, splitting a cab with a complete stranger (who just happens to be a French hottie), giving out the address of her cousins' posh apartment to said French hottie, and planning to fornicate with said French hottie in a matter of hours. Virginal Kim, on the other hand, immediately recognizes the utter stupidity of the wanton wench and berates her for her impulses. Frustrated, she goes to call her daddy, whom she should have called hours before; meanwhile, thugs from a human trafficking operation have broken into the apartment to snatch the two beauties. Naughty naughty Amanda goes first, while Kim watches in horror, explaining every detail to Bryan before they come for her, too.

When you're an ex-government operative type, you've still got all your connections and gadgetry years after you're no longer doing the job. Armed with a recording, a network of knowledgeable pals, and "a very particular set of skills" that would make even Jason (Bourne, if you didn't follow) a little envious, Bryan heads off to Europe to find and kill whoever did...whatever to his precious daughter. Now that you've made him angry, wearied Bryan is going to hunt some folks down and leave some unspeakable carnage in his wake. And getting to see that legendary skill set at work is a thing of beauty. Unsafe driving. Torture. Fist fights. Knives. Guns. All the stuff you love about every action movie you've ever seen, executed to perfection by Liam Neeson. And unlike the Bourne movies (...it always comes back to Jason, folks), the action scenes are shot and edited in such a way that one can actually tell pretty much everything that's happening.

Since Lauren already drew attention to the fact that there are some Star Wars parallels to be made, I may as well mention them. Check out the scene on the yacht and see if you're not thinking about Jabba the Hutt lusting after Leia in her gold bikini. You will. I know you will. You pervert. It actually kind of threw me a little; I'd been really engrossed in the action for the last forty-five minutes or so, and all of a sudden, I was in a galaxy far, far away. And in the worst of all of them, too, God help me.

Technically, more plot stuff unfolds after Bryan gets started on mission of massacreing mayhem (oh, such mayhem!), but none of that's really relevant here. Ultimately, this is an R-ish thriller about a BAMF and his skills. Period. See it. Love it. Don't flirt with French hotties.

-Katie

Taken, or why you should never let your kids travel abroad

I'm tired so this will be really short, as it should be. I saw Taken tonight with Alyssa and Katie. Liam Neeson, as usual, is amazing. I want him to be my father. Between this and his role in Love Actually, he's the best father ever. 

I can't really say much about this, because I don't want to give much away. Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, who is part Jason Bourne, part Craig's Bond. He's basically made of awesome. The plot is fairly strait forward. Mills is a retired government agent of some sort. He's trying to forge a relationship with his teenage daughter, played by Maggie Grace, who surprisingly looks much younger than her actual age. Daughter goes to Paris on vacation. Daughter gets kidnapped by human traffickers. Father rains down ungodly hell on Parisian underworld on quest to find daughter. Pierre Morel does a great job of capturing every glorious minute. The fight scenes are nicely shot, and have non of the shaky footage that plagues the Bourne movies. The characters are believable, if somewhat underdeveloped. Make no mistake, there is no character growth. This movie is about Liam Neeson beating the crap out of everybody. The theater I saw it in was almost full, and the audience loved it. They cheered every moment. The violence was great, pushing that PG-13 rating as much as it could. I've heard rumors of an unrated directors cut, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. 

Sure, sometimes you question what you see. There's a final bit on the boat that I'm sure Katie will mention. She made some comparisons between it and certain Leia and Jabba the Hut moments in Star Wars. It's also very clear that if Liam Neeson hadn't been so lucky in a few instances, he would have been completely screwed. It would have been nice to have explored some characters more and to have given more time to some of the character relationships. But you have to understand, I'm being picky.

All in all, this is a solid action flick. Parents are probably going to be a lot more paranoid about their child's proposed trip to Europe, so beware bringing one's parents to this movie if you are a student/teenager. Regardless, definitely better than most movies in theaters that haven't been nominated, so check it out if the Oscar buzz isn't your thing. Check it out even if it is your thing. Liam Neeson is great. I can't wait to see what Maggie Grace does next, especially since I wrote her off as an uninteresting actress following her somewhat one-note performance on LOST. Most of all, I can't wait to see what Pierre Morel and Luc Besson do next.

Trailer can be found here.

Wow I ramble when I'm tired. Definitely rewriting this later. 

~Lauren