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#593 - Taken 3
Olivier Megaton, 2014
When a highly-skilled security consultant is framed for murder, he must evade the authorities as he tries to find the criminals responsible.
Warning: contains unmarked spoilers for the first two Taken films.
Every once in a while, I'll watch an obviously bad movie and, upon learning that I have done such a thing, other people will ask me, "Why? Why would you do it?" and my answer will consist of four simple words: "I had to know." After giving an extremely unfavourable review to Taken 2 the other day, I still felt compelled to watch Taken 3, the supposed final chapter in the unlikely franchise that had spawned from the left-field Liam Neeson action thriller Taken. That film saw his character cut a bloody swath through an army of human traffickers in order to rescue his teenage daughter - all things considered, it didn't completely suck (having Neeson in a movie tends to do that - or tended to, anyway). After that proved a surprisingly popular hit at the box office and Neeson's career took a turn for the lucrative with his appearances in middlebrow thrillers like Unknown and The Grey, the powers that be decided to produce Taken 2, which attempted to extend the original's mythology by having Neeson's character and his family be explicitly targeted by a mobster seeking vengeance following the events of the original film. Taken 3 touted the tagline "It ends here" as if to suggest that the storyline involving Neeson's war on Albanian traffickers would finally reach its violent yet dramatically satisfying conclusion...
...except that it doesn't. Instead, Taken 3 concocts an entirely unrelated plot that once again sees Neeson attempting to maintain ties with his daughter (Maggie Grace) and ex-wife (Famke Janssen); the latter conection in particular is emphasised as their re-ignited romantic tension is thwarted by Janssen's jealous current husband (Dougray Scott, who I think is supposed to be playing the character portrayed by Xander Berkeley in the first film but surely they'd have picked a more similar-looking actor if that was the case, right?). Things escalate when Neeson is unexpectedly framed for murder; when he naturally escapes the law using his particular set of skills, a federal agent (Forest Whitaker) is assigned to go after him. As a result, Neeson must do whatever it takes to clear his name and wreak furious vengeance on those who have wronged him. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious Russian gangster (Sam Spruell) who is leaving a trail of corpses in search of some money that is owed to him, and it's not long before his army of goons cross paths with Neeson...yeah, you sort of see where this going even as I try to be vague about it. Taken 2 already took an extremely easy approach to making a sequel by having the plot be driven by a villain seeking revenge, but that just made the film film feel like an especially flimsy attempt to continue the story of an extremely one-note thriller. Though that film set up its own premise for a sequel by referencing other mobsters who might seek their own revenge for Neeson's actions, the people responsible for Taken 3 apparently decided that a blatant knock-off of the plot of The Fugitive was a preferable alternative than developing the established cycle-of-vengeance narrative. Why? Hell if I know. This did come out in the same year as Lucy so there's no telling what the hell Luc Besson is thinking these days.
Even with this derivative and nonsensical approach to the material in mind, Taken 3 could have been a tolerable affair if not for the fact that it fails to provide a decent film to go along with it. Other Taken films have set up Neeson's capable protagonist as an unstoppable killing machine when pushed to extremes, though not without shortcomings that make one question their sympathy for his cause; one scene in the original film showed him being willing to electrically torture one of his enemies to death for information on his missing daughter's whereabouts. Taken 3 not only has him willing to torture enemies for information (by waterboarding them, no less) but even attempts to build exciting action showcases out of sequences that show him committing all manner of severe crimes in order to prove his innocence of being a murderer (look no further than the car chase where his attempts to elude police custody result in a container truck's cargo going flying down a busy highway and crushing civilian vehicles in the process). This only goes towards exposing the holes in the film's sense of morality, where literally everything Neeson does is justified in the name of clearing his name and going after the real bad guys. Even Whitaker's top government agent is inclined to understand and even forgive Neeson's actions if they mean that he is going after more obvious villains like Spruell and his cronies. In addition to all this, the film tries to add in a sub-plot regarding Grace undergoing an unexpected pregnancy and Neeson's inevitable reaction to it; this is after his first scene in the film showcases yet another out-of-touch attempt to relate to his daughter. This one reaches parody-like levels with his decision to buy her a gigantic panda bear for her birthday despite her apparently being old enough to be attending college and living in an apartment with her boyfriend. Don't worry, this ends up being plot-relevant...or does it? Ah, what difference does it make.
Leaving aside the extremely questionable approach to morality and character development that these films take, there's also the fact that it's quite simply a bad film in general. As with Taken 2, the film is rendered a nigh-unwatchable mess by various attempts to artificially generate tension and excitement through combinations of quick cuts and shaky camerawork. Stuff like this makes me retroactively respect difficult-to-like films like the various installments in the Death Wish franchise because they at least managed to depict their heavily-aged hero dispensing justice without chopping the film to bits (no matter how ludicrous it may have gotten). As a result, any actual action becomes difficult to appreciate; as if having to buy into a hero of questionable morality wasn't enough, I can't even do it without having to tolerate incoherent action scenes as well. At this point, the less said about acting and writing, the better - if you've seen either of the previous Taken films, then you know what to expect from this particular film. The film is significantly longer than either predecessor because it dares to pad itself out by not only providing background information on Neeson and that trio of colleagues he's always hanging around but by also trying to provide a twisty narrative. Rather than enhance a tired and overly long third installment in the franchise, they only serve to demonstrate how much this film is out of ideas. Despite its many, many flaws, Lucy at least demonstrated some minimal degree of creative effort on Besson's part; Taken 3, on the other hand, is Besson at his most boring as he struggles to co-write a half-decent action movie for this unlikely hit series and has his weak efforts exacerbated by Megaton's messy direction. If you are unfamiliar with either of the previous Taken films, this is a serious cinematic misfire that you are probably better off not watching at all. If you are remotely invested in the Taken films, then this will still be an underwhelming excuse for a "final chapter"...at least until a fourth Taken film gets produced. Hey, Liam Neeson needs to eat too, you know?
Olivier Megaton, 2014
When a highly-skilled security consultant is framed for murder, he must evade the authorities as he tries to find the criminals responsible.
Warning: contains unmarked spoilers for the first two Taken films.
Every once in a while, I'll watch an obviously bad movie and, upon learning that I have done such a thing, other people will ask me, "Why? Why would you do it?" and my answer will consist of four simple words: "I had to know." After giving an extremely unfavourable review to Taken 2 the other day, I still felt compelled to watch Taken 3, the supposed final chapter in the unlikely franchise that had spawned from the left-field Liam Neeson action thriller Taken. That film saw his character cut a bloody swath through an army of human traffickers in order to rescue his teenage daughter - all things considered, it didn't completely suck (having Neeson in a movie tends to do that - or tended to, anyway). After that proved a surprisingly popular hit at the box office and Neeson's career took a turn for the lucrative with his appearances in middlebrow thrillers like Unknown and The Grey, the powers that be decided to produce Taken 2, which attempted to extend the original's mythology by having Neeson's character and his family be explicitly targeted by a mobster seeking vengeance following the events of the original film. Taken 3 touted the tagline "It ends here" as if to suggest that the storyline involving Neeson's war on Albanian traffickers would finally reach its violent yet dramatically satisfying conclusion...
...except that it doesn't. Instead, Taken 3 concocts an entirely unrelated plot that once again sees Neeson attempting to maintain ties with his daughter (Maggie Grace) and ex-wife (Famke Janssen); the latter conection in particular is emphasised as their re-ignited romantic tension is thwarted by Janssen's jealous current husband (Dougray Scott, who I think is supposed to be playing the character portrayed by Xander Berkeley in the first film but surely they'd have picked a more similar-looking actor if that was the case, right?). Things escalate when Neeson is unexpectedly framed for murder; when he naturally escapes the law using his particular set of skills, a federal agent (Forest Whitaker) is assigned to go after him. As a result, Neeson must do whatever it takes to clear his name and wreak furious vengeance on those who have wronged him. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious Russian gangster (Sam Spruell) who is leaving a trail of corpses in search of some money that is owed to him, and it's not long before his army of goons cross paths with Neeson...yeah, you sort of see where this going even as I try to be vague about it. Taken 2 already took an extremely easy approach to making a sequel by having the plot be driven by a villain seeking revenge, but that just made the film film feel like an especially flimsy attempt to continue the story of an extremely one-note thriller. Though that film set up its own premise for a sequel by referencing other mobsters who might seek their own revenge for Neeson's actions, the people responsible for Taken 3 apparently decided that a blatant knock-off of the plot of The Fugitive was a preferable alternative than developing the established cycle-of-vengeance narrative. Why? Hell if I know. This did come out in the same year as Lucy so there's no telling what the hell Luc Besson is thinking these days.
Even with this derivative and nonsensical approach to the material in mind, Taken 3 could have been a tolerable affair if not for the fact that it fails to provide a decent film to go along with it. Other Taken films have set up Neeson's capable protagonist as an unstoppable killing machine when pushed to extremes, though not without shortcomings that make one question their sympathy for his cause; one scene in the original film showed him being willing to electrically torture one of his enemies to death for information on his missing daughter's whereabouts. Taken 3 not only has him willing to torture enemies for information (by waterboarding them, no less) but even attempts to build exciting action showcases out of sequences that show him committing all manner of severe crimes in order to prove his innocence of being a murderer (look no further than the car chase where his attempts to elude police custody result in a container truck's cargo going flying down a busy highway and crushing civilian vehicles in the process). This only goes towards exposing the holes in the film's sense of morality, where literally everything Neeson does is justified in the name of clearing his name and going after the real bad guys. Even Whitaker's top government agent is inclined to understand and even forgive Neeson's actions if they mean that he is going after more obvious villains like Spruell and his cronies. In addition to all this, the film tries to add in a sub-plot regarding Grace undergoing an unexpected pregnancy and Neeson's inevitable reaction to it; this is after his first scene in the film showcases yet another out-of-touch attempt to relate to his daughter. This one reaches parody-like levels with his decision to buy her a gigantic panda bear for her birthday despite her apparently being old enough to be attending college and living in an apartment with her boyfriend. Don't worry, this ends up being plot-relevant...or does it? Ah, what difference does it make.
Leaving aside the extremely questionable approach to morality and character development that these films take, there's also the fact that it's quite simply a bad film in general. As with Taken 2, the film is rendered a nigh-unwatchable mess by various attempts to artificially generate tension and excitement through combinations of quick cuts and shaky camerawork. Stuff like this makes me retroactively respect difficult-to-like films like the various installments in the Death Wish franchise because they at least managed to depict their heavily-aged hero dispensing justice without chopping the film to bits (no matter how ludicrous it may have gotten). As a result, any actual action becomes difficult to appreciate; as if having to buy into a hero of questionable morality wasn't enough, I can't even do it without having to tolerate incoherent action scenes as well. At this point, the less said about acting and writing, the better - if you've seen either of the previous Taken films, then you know what to expect from this particular film. The film is significantly longer than either predecessor because it dares to pad itself out by not only providing background information on Neeson and that trio of colleagues he's always hanging around but by also trying to provide a twisty narrative. Rather than enhance a tired and overly long third installment in the franchise, they only serve to demonstrate how much this film is out of ideas. Despite its many, many flaws, Lucy at least demonstrated some minimal degree of creative effort on Besson's part; Taken 3, on the other hand, is Besson at his most boring as he struggles to co-write a half-decent action movie for this unlikely hit series and has his weak efforts exacerbated by Megaton's messy direction. If you are unfamiliar with either of the previous Taken films, this is a serious cinematic misfire that you are probably better off not watching at all. If you are remotely invested in the Taken films, then this will still be an underwhelming excuse for a "final chapter"...at least until a fourth Taken film gets produced. Hey, Liam Neeson needs to eat too, you know?