‘Taken’ is a Dish Best Served Cold
-----Steadily building quality January-movie hype after its trailer, the question remained whether it would please or not. With brutal action, a strong lead, and…. I just felt like something was missing to put it into the keeper’s category. Regardless, this is still a pretty solid revenge flick.
-----Underappreciated by ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and often considered overprotective, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) retires to make up for much lost time with his daughter. Now a big girl, she just wants to go to Paris and have fun for the summer. Regretful about lost time but eager to win his daughter’s affection, he lets her go. Ex-wife Lenore finds him to be paranoid about such things, thinking he’s lost a grasp on reality. She is, of course, wrong. When Bryan’s daughter is abducted almost immediately after getting to Paris, he takes it upon himself to use his, “particular set of skills” to get her back.
-----Liam Neeson turns in another excellent performance to add to his list of calm yet intense characters. In fact, many of his major career roles have included just such figures including but not limited to Star Wars’ Qui-Gon Jin, Batman Begins’ Ra’s Al Ghoul, and even the voice of powerful lion Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia franchise. His physical believability carries many of this films would-be far fetched beat downs into feasible brutal thrashings. He’s really the only actor with much to do, so I won’t even bother talking about the others, from his spoiled daughter to his bitter ex-wife. What I will tell you is that this is Neeson’s vehicle through and through and he drives it with a compelling and calculated intensity.
-----The action scenes vary from good to mediocre, with Neeson, as I previously stated making many of them quality brawls. While the cinematography works in some places, in others I felt it was trying too hard. My ideal movie is one where I forget about the camera, not one where I am occasionally reminded of its’ abrupt attempts at implying intensity. The script is also better at times than others, with the bulk of the revenge being handled nicely, though I felt some of the early developmental points had pacing issues. I can’t put my finger on it but some things felt too long, and some things a bit too short.
-----One area I was gravely disappointed in was the musical score. It maintained a certain subtle intensity during the trailer which I felt perfectly mirrored Neeson’s attitude. And while this theme does appear during the credits, it is nowhere to be seen (or rather heard) during the film at all, at least not noticeably. The music instead feels typical and interchangeable. I really felt the trailer’s score could have brought many of the film’s moments to vivid life, abandoning some of the convention that occasionally takes it over. However, despite these flaws among others, I still enjoyed the film. It packs a punch almost solely due to Neeson’s presence, and adequately entertains along the way. My only real reason for not completely recommending it is due to a resounding, “what it could’ve been” in the back of my mind.
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