Taken 3

Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker, Famke Janssen
Directed By: Olivier Megaton
Reviewed by Brendan Dousi

[Rating: 1/5]

You’d be forgiven for having fond memories of Luc Besson. His contribution to cinema holds a special place in my own heart due to films like The Fifth Element and Leon: The Professional. Then I remember that those films are from two decades ago, twenty years, and I can’t say that I’ve completely loved anything he’s made since. Sure, the first two Taken films are very adequate pieces of filmmaking and a lot of people have mixed feelings about last year’s Lucy but, let’s face it, the majority of what Luc Besson attaches himself to these days is basically trash. I mean, From Paris With Love? The never-ending onslaught of Transporter films? These films definitely fall into the ‘trash’ category, they can be enjoyable, but they’re still trash. So here we are at Taken 3 or Tak3n depending on which poster you see. Will this fall into the fond memories pile of Besson films or will this be another one to be delegated to the trash heap? In that case, is it at least enjoyable trash?

Taken 3 starts with ex-CIA operative with a special set of skills, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) piecing his life back together. His relationship with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is now on solid grounds despite him lamenting “Why is she growing up so fast?” (I don’t know, it might have something to do with an Armenian cartel kidnapping her, getting her addicted to Meth and then letting her get raped for profit) and a solid foundation is being built with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) who turns to Bryan for support while her marriage to Stuart St. John (Dougray Scott) crumbles around her. Byran is content in supporting the two main women in his life until a horrendous Murder happens in his apartment, staged to look like he was the killer. Bryan must now escape custody so he can track down the actual murderer and those who seek to frame him for it.

I’m just going to go ahead and say it. Taken 3 is an awful film. It manages to toe the line between two types of awful films, the ‘so bad it’s good’ and the ‘so bad it’s a bore’ categories. The first can be forgiven; you can enjoy schlock that is so bad it makes you laugh. At least then you get some kind of joy, some entertainment out of your viewing experience. The latter category is unforgivable. No one wants to pay upward of twenty dollars to nap in a room full of strangers. I mean, you might, if that’s your thing, but I’m going out on a limb and assuming most people don’t’ want to.

Firstly, what makes it partly ‘so bad it’s good’? Well, there are the uninspired performances for a start. I don’t think anyone actually wanted to be there. Neeson is his gruff self, only more noticeably dead-eyed. Maggie Grace plays the cutesy daughter who cries a lot and seems not in the least emotionally and psychologically affected by the events of the previous two film. The usually awesome Famke Janssen is wooden as hell. Then you have the various arrays of overly simplified and campy villains with muddy motivation. It’s just a mess. An at times glorious mess which is only added to by the erratic performance of Forest Whitaker playing a detective whose main crime-solving skills revolve around OCD and eating everything in sight. Honestly, when you see this man lick a yoghurt lid out of the trash you know he means business.

Unfortunately this campiness is over-run by the overwhelming blandness of the film’s script and direction. As an action film, the last thing you want is to have boring action scenes. Unfortunately Mr. Megaton didn’t get the memo and just gives a number of by-the-numbers fight scenes that don’t even try to equal the energy or inventiveness seen in the first Taken film. In fact, a good time is spent on chase sequences that involve frantic editing between a hobbling Liam Neeson and his sprinting and bounding body-double. This would fall into the ‘so bad it’s good’ category if it didn’t keep happening over and over again. Besides the action and the uninspired ‘murder set-up’ plot line, this film takes absolutely no opportunities to do something cool and exciting. It just sticks to the safest, most obvious choices and as a result is just plain dull.

If you’re invested in the Taken series and want to see how it all ends, I wouldn’t even recommend seeing this movie. Whatever you come up with in your own head will be heads and shoulders above what this film even tries to achieve. Still, if you want an unchallenging and basic movie-going experience and desire to see a dead-eyed Liam Neeson rehash a line of dialogue about his ‘particular set of skills’ then by all means, go and see Tak3n. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.