Never should have 'Taken' it for granted.

Rating: 2/10 (1 August 2012)

The film 'Taken' offers two things: Action, and a father-daughter reunion. And it does just that, with the tragic expense of 92 minutes of your life. It argues the very definition of a good action movie. As such, the film 'Taken' is not worthy of it's Blockbuster reputation.
The film's pace is a speedily one, that goes by so damn fast that you don't even have time to process any of the information that the film throws at you. This requires a second viewing. Therefore the only people who can catch up are the hardiest of action-goers. Also, you're viewing it, wondering 'where did the last five minutes go?' At that point, you're already lost in the horrid, butchered editing, till you find yourself pausing it to take a breather. The pace also does not give way to the films dialog. Some of the dialog is great, but it fails to catch up with the actors that speak it. Again, another example of butchered film editing. The film goes from a meaningful drama, to a let's-go-and-ruin-and-destroy-everything. Where the action thrives from speedily boat chases to fist crunching sequences, suffering long and hard of 'shaky camera syndrome'. But the action overwhelms our protagonist so god damn much that it reaches a point where there is no story, and our characters get lost in the midst of all the explosions and foreign gibberish.
The film's story line is one massive plot hole in itself. What are the odds, that; The daughter kidnapped ('Kim') just happened to be the daughter of an ex-CIA agent. What are the odds that sex traffickers, just happened to kidnap the daughter of a kick-ass CIA full-time father? And what are the odds that she was kidnapped at the time she was on the phone to her father? And what are the beckoning odds, that they were kidnapped on the very same day as their arrival? (IN-cluding the evil taxi driver that drove them to their apartment) Questions like these don't match up. The film's story line is so damn focused on the action and combat choreography that it doesn't concentrate on the reason it's being made in the first place. Creating more questions than answers is possibly the worst thing a storyline can do, at this point.
Oh, there's also no character development. Liam Neeson misses some great opportunities to grow into his character. As it seems, he's so focused on smashing guys up and finding his daughter that perhaps he gets lost in his own motif. Nobody has character development. Giving the certain situation, there's all the more reason for us to fall in love with our characters.
In summary, it's a worthless film with jaw-aching action with an eyesore pace.