Miserable...

Rating: 4/10 (24 February 2011)

Liam Neeson has made so many movies in which he's miserable you would certainly think he'd have the expression down by now. And throughout "Taken," even before the action starts, he proves it like never before. From the first frame his face is screwed into a look of discomfort you haven't seen since John Boehner's last interview.
There's nothing to say about plot here - or character development, logic, or anything else new to the genre. The movie is as generic and bare-bones as possible: hero, victim, bad guys, death. It moves, and that's good in an action movie, but to say it moves is like saying Glenn Beck cries. Of course it moves. It's supposed to.
The better question is whether it's different from anything else you've seen in the last ten years. That is, since digital manipulation of editing, special effects, stunts and now apparently screen writing has become so prevalent. The answer in my opinion is no.
It's exactly the same, with the popular new twist added that the hero is completely invincible. He feels no pain, has no emotions, never gets injured, is prepared for everything and can get out of any outlandish situation. So not only is "Taken" generic (and sexist, and xenophobic), it's also dull and very predictable.
Which might explain Mr. Neeson's more incredibly pained on screen expression. Could he be picturing his foreseeable future in movies? Not as the brooding leading man of intelligent, well-written pictures, but as Jason Statham's new daddy.