Both terribly good and terribly bad

Rating: 6/10 (1 February 2009)

The spy-thriller film genre is a favorite of mine, has been since I first saw Connery's James Bond in Goldfinger as a young boy. In my late teens I was introduced to Jason Bourne and my liking of the genre was decidedly solidified.
I like Luc Besson (his Leon is an all-time favorite of mine), and The Fifth Element was a breath of fresh air that mixed elements sci-fi, humor, horror, and suspense in a wonderfully well-balanced and entertaining way (not to mention that it had Milla Jovovich in it...).
After hearing almost nothing but heated enthusiasm for this movie, I finally saw it last night. Honestly, I wanted to fall in love with this film. Liam Neeson is a splendid actor, and I've liked nearly all of his efforts to date. His character in this movie is an ex-spy whose dedication to his former career spelled a divorce for him and an estrangement from his now teenage daughter who he dearly loves. Of course, the title of the film lets us know what the movie is about. The movie's plot elements are awfully tired as they've been overused to agonizing redundancy in countless films, but hey okay, it's supposed to be really good, has Liam Neeson in it, and after all, it's a spy-thriller, right? Well...
I won't give any details away here. Suffice it to say that parts of this movie had me cheering and hyper-adrenalized, but conversely, parts of it had me rolling my eyes as I sat through scenes that were laughably implausible, unbelievably predictable, and, acting-wise, downright wooden. There are no surprises in this movie. While Jason Bourne was a bad-ass spy that we expected to mess people up, his character was complex and all three films in the Bourne Trilogy featured intelligent plot twists, good acting, and decent scripts. The same cannot be said of this movie. Taken reveals some of the most pathetic acting, annoying characters, and mindless Hollywood drivel I've seen in a long time. But...
It's entertaining, to say the least. Actually, if you can shut half of your brain down, it's quite good. Just don't expect anything you haven't seen before. The early scenes in which Neeson seeks (and gets) delicious revenge are excellent, yes. But although he always destroys his enemies, the freshness of his victories becomes absent before half the movie is over. You'll see why. For the most part, Taken is a repetitive, one-dimensional, and mind-numbingly unrealistic movie. Too bad. With a little more ingenuity and all-around versatility it could have been great. The bottom line: Taken is a movie that is both terribly good and, yes, terribly bad.