After Bryan saves a flippant singer from a would-be attacker after a live performance, Bryan encounters a situation he finds infinitely more dangerous. Though hesitant, Bryan allows his “teenage” daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) to go to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy) to visit museums though they are really going to be following U2 around Europe. Soon after touching down, men break into where Kim and Amanda are staying and kidnap them.

Kim is on the phone with Bryan during most of the kidnapping, allowing Bryan to give her advice on how to act during this crisis. This a clear illustration of the expertise and seasoning Bryan possesses. Most parents would become hysterical; Bryan is calm and clear-headed. Because of his instruction, Kim is able to give Bryan valuable information about her kidnappers before she is gagged and taken out of the room.

When Bryan arrives in Paris looking for his daughter, no one is safe as he goes on a focused rampage looking for clues and tracking down those involved in the kidnapping. One of Bryan’s old acquaintances; now comfortable behind a desk and wanting to keep it that way, gives what help he can but is more interested in job security than in assisting Bryan. Taken is almost as unforgiving a revenge film as Man on Fire, which has even more brutality than this film and is as harsh as Marvel’s The Punisher films should be.

When Bryan tortures someone, he doesn’t talk about what he is going to do; he just does it then asks his questions. It’s not like on television’s Alias or The Punisher (2004) where they talk, never really do anything (or cut away when they do) or someone miraculously intervenes at the last second. It’s just Bryan, the person he is torturing and pain Marv from Sin City could appreciate.

Taken’s fight scenes aren’t thrown in to spice things up, they are very appropriate to the character and the situation he is in. They also speak to the long career and skills he acquired during it, which were alluded to earlier in the film. I was impressed by some of them but since Luc Besson is a producer for Taken, I should not have been that surprised. I have heard that these fight scenes are reminiscent of those found in The Bourne Identity series. Since I have only seen the first film in that series (the television version staring Richard Chamberlain is more faithful to the book), I can not fairly equate them with that. What I can say is that Bryan is one efficient and quick killer with no compunction for blood work. The wet work and the film’s other favorable attributes notwithstanding, Taken is not without its flaws. We are never shown the Human Trafficking issues and trials that Kim and Amanda had to endure while Byran searched for them. If these elements had been included, it would have broaden the film and made it more than a mere action film but a drama with numerous action segments.

Pierre Morel’s Taken is a great ride, a thriller that thrills and never lets your attention go for a second. Now if only other revenge, action films could take a queue from Taken, the cinema would be a better place.

Rating: 9/10

If you enjoyed this review, subscribe to our full RSS Feed or by Email to be informed when we post new ones.

ShareThis

I loved the first teaser trailer for Taken. This Taken trailer gives you more information on Liam Neeson‘s character. “Bryan [Liam Neeson], a former secret agent living in the US, is divorced; he is fond of his 17-year-old daughter Kim [Maggie Grace] who lives with his ex-wife and her new husband. Kim wants to take a vacation in Europe with her friend Amanda [Katie Cassidy], and together follow the Europe tour of U2. Kim’s mother allows this, but Kim also needs permission from Bryan. Since Kim fears that Bryan will not consent because of cautiousness, she pretends that they will only go to Paris.” The fact that Luc Besson produced Taken is another inducement to see this film, especially if you are a fan of The Professional. If you own a Region Free DVD player, Taken is already out on DVD. If not, Taken will be out on Region 1 DVD and Blu-ray soon.

Source: wikipedia, yahoo

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to our full RSS Feed or by Email to be informed when we post new ones.

ShareThis

Dead or Alive is purified popcorn entertainment and fluff manufactured into a MTV, flash package with no substance. When translating an innovative videogame into a film, it may not have been the best idea to make the characters look exactly as they do in the videogame. Some videogame hairstyles and costumes look pretty ridiculous in real life, a point exemplified in Dead or Alive.

Dead or Alive could have easily been a decent action film along the lines of Mortal Kombat but where Mortal Kombat’s characters took themselves seriously hence the fantastic was made real, the DOA characters act carefree in supposed life or death situations. Scenes that really could have been good: parachuting out of a plane, a fight on a raft, etc. are made slap sticky by the character’s attitudes. Everything violent and perilous inherit in fighting someone else was turned into cheese. On the limited plus side of Dead or Alive, the female actresses, especially the wrestler, Tina Armstrong, played by gym-rat Jaime Pressly; all have in-shape physiques (some more than others) and aren’t shy about displaying them.

Most of the female characters get an introduction scene which shows how they got invented to the DOA fighting competition, an almost analogous plot device to that found in Mortal Kombat, yet far less interesting and effective. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that all three main characters magically find themselves in adverse situations during these introductory scenes. These situations, usually a fight where the character is outnumbered, is somehow their DOA audition. Once they prevail, a CGI shuriken with the DOA logo gets thrown and stuck into something nearby the character, inviting them to the Dead or Alive fighting competition. An illustration of this is when one of the characters, Princess Kasumi, played by Devon Aoki, hang-glides out of her palace, making her Shinobi (an outcast) and one of these shuriken mysteriously finds her, in mid-air mind you, with her DOA invitation. How this is possible and by what method is never explained in the film.

I have no qualms about admitting that I still have the video that inspired this film, Dead or Alive 2 for the Sega Dreamcast (I still have my Dreamcast as well) but screenwriters J.F. Lawton, Adam Gross and Seth Gross contrived scenario connections and plot devices make no sense even for a videogame movie. Think of it like this: if DOA was a superhero movie, it would be an even worse version of Batman Forever/Batman and Robin. I’ve seen television shows with more cohesive (and realistic) plot lines, CGI and green screen work. DOA didn’t even need splashy effects, all it needed were in-shape, good-looking women (which they have), badass fight scenes and a semi-plausible plot, which they absolutely don’t have.

Corey Yuen’s Dead or Alive is a film of infinitely wasted potentially. It could have been an exploitive film via the sixties and seventies. It could have been an R-rated martial arts flick like Bloodsport; it could have been a nice showcase for the physical abilities of the film’s lead actresses like the television show Alias was for Jennifer Garner. It could have been as inventive and entertaining as So Close but DOA has none of aforementioned films’ quality or solidity. It’s like Corey Yuen, J.F. Lawton, Adam Gross and Seth Gross didn’t know what to do or where to go with Dead or Alive, so they took the safe and soft PG-13 route and unfortunately, we are left with a hackneyed and marginal Saturday Night insomniac action film.

Rate: 4/10

If you enjoyed this review, subscribe to our full RSS feed or by e-mail to get informed when we post new ones.

ShareThis