Not bad, but disappointing

Rating: 1/10 (26 February 2011)

OK, before you get mad because I gave it a 1, let me explain. This movie is decent. It is exciting in parts, the story is almost intriguing, Liam Neeson is the man, and I at least had a good time, but for me there wasn't enough incentive to spend $8 and I honestly wish I had waited for the Netflix release.
I heard this movie compared to Taken multiple times but let me assure anyone who is trying to decide... this is not nearly as good as Taken. Taken didn't try to be something it wasn't. It had a very clear and simple plot used very efficiently to make one intense and unrelenting action scene after the next.
Unknown is not that movie. It tries to be suspenseful, dramatic, thrilling, and intriguing but leaves much to be desired. Its hard to explain without specifics but the main problem I had is that the story touched on so many character development possibilities but basically does nothing with them. A few very important character transitions happen without even a discussion as to why. When the twist finally showed up I thought it was interesting but it didn't change anything for Liam's character. It was like there were 3 or 4 scenes in the original movie where the character had to deal with a "love interest" problem, an "identity" problem, and a final "declaration of purpose" but they decided to cut them out to get to the end quicker. It just kind of rolls on while leaving out the character's real struggles in order to finish the story. And honestly, it may be because I wasn't very attached to the characters, but the twist was a little silly. You may have a different opinion but that's just how I felt about it. Liam Neeson did a great job as always, Diane Kruger was probably the most interesting character (but again with many possibilities left unexplored) but she did a fantastic job... and she's really hot.
Now don't think I can't appreciate a simple movie. I love Micheal Bay films. He keeps his character development to an absolute minimum, just enough to keep the audience interested between explosions. What disappointed me about this movie is it seemed to really want to be intriguing, intelligent, and thought-provoking but falls short of the mark.
Overall, the best assessment I can give is that the movie was extremely mediocre but could have been great. The reason I gave it a 1 is not because I'm mad at the movie but because when I looked up the reviews it had a 7.9 which is VERY misleading. This is a solid 6.