The Bourne Retirement Home

Rating: 7/10 (1 February 2009)

After a rather long set up opening segment, with painfully obvious dialogue and scenes to give "clues" on where this was headed, 'Taken' doesn't, well, take us anywhere we don't already know where it's going (from the zillion trailers or simply just the opening set-up) and all the way to the final act. However, what a ride it was. Thoroughly enjoyable action scenes, Liam Neeson (seriously, one of the best actors of all time and we still forgive you for 'Star Wars' Episode 1, even though you did the best with what George would allow) was again excellent and it contained a lot of funny and smart lines, mostly from Neeson. I always enjoy Jean Grey (uh, Famke Janssen) but in this film, she was an obvious one-note, as were all the characters outside of Neeson. Strange, for someone so incredibly non-violent in our reality, he's just deadly in 'Taken' and really shows us what 'The Bourne Retirement Home' will look like once Matt Damon finally grows up. This is strictly for fans of the 'Bourne' films, Fox's '24' series and Neeson. Predictable, yes, unoriginal, well, yeah, and it doesn't trump 'Bourne' (nowhere close) but it was exciting to see what Neeson's Bryan would do next or how he would get out of a situation. I'm glad writer Luc Besson didn't include his staple Jason Statham to play the lead character, Bryan, as he would definitely fit the role. Neeson saved what would've been just a retread  retired  revenge  romp. Bryan: "I'm retired. Not dead." Enough said.