Taken 3 (SPOILERS… I suppose)
Cert: 12A / 109 mins / Dir. Olivier Megaton / Trailer
As an action film featuring a former Star Wars actor, playing a character framed for the murder of his wife, escaping from the pursuing authorities by running through a sewer network, Tak3n owes so much to The Fugitive that it's had to get a loan from Mission Impossible just to keep up the repayments...
Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills returns as the trouble-magnet ex-CIA agent, but this time the action stays on US soil and centers around an insurance claim (no, I'm not making that up), and the only Nasty Bad Foreigners™ to be ruthlessly dispatched by our hero come in the form of reassuringly stereotypical Russian gangsters (whose wardrobe appears to be sponsored by Joe Brown's, oddly).
On the plus side, the rampant xenophobia and casual misogyny of the first two films is actually dialled down dramatically for this trilogy-closer*1, but the result is an almost offensively bland film in which ideas and set-pieces from a host of other films are borrowed and reassembled by the Besson/Kamen writing team. Director Olivier Megaton seems to have attained a 12A certificate by ensuring the violent scenes are so shaky and choppily-edited, that no-one in the audience has any idea what's actually going on. Although to be fair, this is the most bloodless murder-thriller you're likely to see, and no-one actually dies until Those Pesky Ruskies™ re-appear for the final act (at which point They All Die. Funny that).
The film's plot is explained at regular intervals by Neeson, with assistance from Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker and Dougray Scott, and in case you missed any of it what with all the exploding cars going on, Neeson and Whitaker actually have a quiet reprise scene at the end to explain it again. No, I'm not making that up either.
Taken 3 might not be as willfully provocative as its forebears, but it's no better a film for it, sadly. By the time our heroes enjoy a slow-pan-out sunset on the pier, even Neeson looks like he's had enough.
Oh, and when Neeson's got Sam Spruell pinned against the stairs in his pants with a gun in his face (still not making that up), you can see the tattoo-makeup on his chest smudging. The skills aren't very particular, this time around.
It's not, in all honesty.
This is a £3 DVD when you're in Asda buying a curry and a few beers for a Saturday night in. If you're not fussy.
In no way, shape or form.
I actually don't think it does, and you can believe that it's not trying to achieve a lot.
Not really.
Not that I heard, no.
Stars Qui-Gon Jinn himself, Liam Neeson, of course.
*1 Please let this be a trilogy-closer rather than a quadrilogy-penultimator. Please let the poster tagline of "it ends here" be the one sincere thing about the entire debacle...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Why, oh why, didn't they adopt the Step Up strategy and call this 'Taken 2: Istanbul'? They missed a trick, there. Ah well.
As with its predecessor (which I watched for the first time last weekend), I found there to be a nasty layer of xenophobia* covering the whole film. In both installments, the lack of characterisation for the antagonists serves to paint them as "nasty foreigners", and they become cartoon punchbags for the righteous Bryan to smack, break and shoot for ninety minutes. The most painful of all is Rade Šerbedžija (you know him: Boris The Blade), who you've got to feel pretty sorry for as his typecasting hell drags him down to new lows. He's given a clichéd graveside speech about Revenge™ at the start of the film, which is followed up by his character being a weasely all-mouth-no-trousers type, right up to his final unconvincing scene. All other bad guys in Taken 2 are crudely drawn stereotypes, straight from the imaginations of Eastern-European-fearing Daily Mail readers. Naturally, Neeson's character kills them all. Hey, they deserve it.
My biggest beef with the film? It's entirely joyless. As much as Neeson looks outraged and vengeful, and as much as his adversaries are painted as not very nice people, I found no real engagement in him systematically killing them. If anything, it seems to get grubbier with each Albanian body hitting the floor, and the Turkish police being either completely inept or just not present (similar to the Parisian police, in that respect). This also points toward the stunning lack of character development in regards to Neeson's Bryan and his family. Other than seeing him having a barbecue with the guys every once in a while, and holding obvious father/daughter issues, we're meant to take it as read that he's morally untouchable; this despite the fact that he's ex-CIA and currently working freelance private security. Definitely not a mercenary, then. There's little doubt who's 'good' and who's 'bad' in Taken 2, but I find it particularly hard to sympathise with anyone other than his daughter's boyfriend…
Oh, and in addition to the ridiculous amount of gunfire let off in public here, Bryan gets his daughter (completely untrained in firearms and explosives) to set of three (three) grenades in public places, purely to judge distance/location. Yay for vigilantism! This is part of a series of eyebrow-raising moments that I can't be bothered to list, mainly because the rest of the film's so unpleasant.
At best, it's solidly below-average, but I'm also acutely aware that many of the reasons I didn't enjoy it are down to me, not the film-makers. Pffft.
If you liked Taken, you'll probably like this. It's more of the same, with everything that implies.
* For the record, my feelings on the first film were as follows: It's essentially a thinly veiled allegory for a country that can't handle its immigration problem, and thinks it'd be marvellous if America™ came in and sorted it out for them, because 'them forrins are up to no good'. Doesn't necessarily apply exclusively to France, it just did in this case. That's entirely my opinion, of course, and I'd be delighted to read your explanation of why that couldn't possibly be the case.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
