Taken, too

Rating: 5/10 (10 October 2012)

A friend of mine thought Taken was the greatest movie of all time. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I thought much of it was too unbelievable to be taken as a serious film. Yeah, if you are looking for revenge, then, these films will feed that need. The formula is pretty much set. However, you can still make a good film that is based on revenge. It doesn't have to be formulaic. If you want to see such a film, watch the original Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman. The problem is that at some point, you can only push this revenge thing so far, then the film becomes a parody of itself. Taken 2 is much like Rambo 4 in this regard. In Rambo 4, Stallone basically wipes out the entire Burmese army on his own. In Taken 2, Liam Neeson basically wipes out the entire Albanian mafia on his own. He never misses a shot and despite being shot at with machine guns on many occasion, is not even scratched. His teenage daughter, who cannot pass a driving test, suddenly drives through Istanbul in a way that would make Jason Statham's Transporter character look like a fat lady on an electric shopping cart. The same sedentary girl performs athletic feats that approach world record standards. I don't know why people say this is unbelievable.
But nothing I say here is going to change anything. My friend will still think this is a great movie. I can see Taken 3 on the horizon and, unbelievable as it may seem, I think I already know how it ends.