Taken

Bomb Rating: 

Those crafty bastards figured out a way to sell a Jason Statham movie to another actor.

Liam Neeson joins the ranks of Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the club of old actors who don't know when to quit. There should be an industry standard that no actors over 55 are allowed on set unless they are playing grandparents or evil masterminds in wheelchairs. An old man kicking ass is a stressful thing to watch, and it's difficult for the mind to process scenes with Liam diving onto the floor to avoid a hail of bullets.

I know he still looks young, but makeup can't hide that lie for much longer. Soon the hair dye will be obsolete. And if he doesn't stop doing these high-end action extravaganza's, he's going to be wearing man nappies and eating din-dins through a straw by the time he reaches 65.  

Suspension of disbelief was impossible. Bryan Mills (Neeson) was untouchable and he was pissed off. The glitzy fight sequences struck a chord of memory...and then it came to me. Shave his head, give him a more slurred accent, and he's Jason Statham. Later on this made a lot more sense when I realized that Director Pierre Model and writer Luc Besson, who collectively created the Transporter movies, were simply up to their old tricks. Those crafty bastards figured out a way to sell a Jason Statham movie to another actor. I knew I recognized the familiar, yet still painful headache that pounded in time to the repetitive sound of gunfire spread throughout the movie. 

Bryan Mills is a boring old sod, who has given up his life of wonder and war to be close to his giggly, pony-toting (yet busty) teenage daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). She goes to France on holiday and within seconds is in the hands of naughty slave traders because she is a naive twit. Bryan bursts into action, and with the athletic display of a nimble young Chinese contortionist massacres every woman selling Arab stereotype that dares to get in his way.

There have been a lot of films lately about modern slavery and prostitution. Most of them are graphic, horrifying bits of rapist crap. The plot for Taken isn't like that. It's like an overfed battery chicken. It's stuffed with just enough to keep it going but it doesn't have a leg to stand on. Not one villain lived to regret crossing Bryan Mills. But we'll all live to regret watching him.

 

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