Better Movies Exist In Nearly Every Aspect

Rating: 2/10 (11 March 2017)

Well, Hollywood, you suckered me into another one. After the rousing success of "Taken", Liam Neeson returns to the same basic format in "Unknown". Unfortunately, the final product is far less thrilling and downright bad.
For a basic plot summary, "Unknown" sees bio-scientist Martin Harris (Neeson) in Germany for a worldwide science convention. While oversees, Harris is involved in a traffic accident and gets banged around a bit. When he comes to, his memory is a bit scrambled and his entire identity is seemingly stolen.
To put it bluntly, this film is bad in pretty much every aspect, but three really stand out:
First off, Hollywood suckers us in by capitalizing on Neeson's "Taken" persona, only this time throwing in January Jones (of Mad Men fame) as eye candy. No new character ground is trod whatsoever.
Second, the plot is almost a carbon-copy of the Jason Bourne series, only much less intriguing and reeking again of capitalizing on an already-done idea.
Finally, and this is the truly sad part, this movie actually has a decent mystery revealed towards the end. However, the rest of the movie is so drab that you won't care about the "big reveal" when it does arrive.
Basically, here is how I look at "Unknown": It tries to channel "Taken", instead rips off "Bourne", and ends up far too close to the dismal "Edge of Darkness". I'd maybe give it 1.5 stars, but I can't give it the benefit of the doubt for two stars.