I wasn't that impressed by the trailers for Taken. The idea of Qui-Gon Jinn going on a rampage Charles Bronson style on the men who kidnapped his daughter seemed pretty weak. I wondered how well Qui-Gon would be able to convey the proper emotional response when speaking with the kidnappers. However, given the choice between renting Taken and the latest Underworld abomination, I was happy to give way to my curiosity and find out if Qui-Gon was up to the challenge.
Like John Matrix before him, Qui-Gon is a retired special agent/army type who just wants to live a quiet life and be a good dad. How will Qui-Gon react when his daughter wants to go to Paris with her best friend for the summer? Not too well. Despite his reservations, his ex-wife (another thankless role for Famke Janssen) guilts him into agreeing to the scheme and away they go.
It doesn't take long for the girls to get into trouble. Like all good best friend characters in these kinds of movies, best friend has "loose morals" and announces that she's going to have sex with that guy from the airport who offered to share a cab. With the countdown to best friend's demise under way, a group of kidnappers arrive to abduct the girls. Now daddy's got just 96 hours to track down the bastards who kidnapped his daughter and get some revenge.
With the setup out of the way we get to the action. The good: innocent people get used as human shields, large body count, well choreographed (for the most part) fight scenes (think Jason Bourne style). The bad: the car chases are terrible. During one chase scene at some sort of factory/mining operation it is at times difficult to tell who exactly is chasing who.
The movie ends predictably enough, and I can't say I really have any complaints except that 1) the stupid ex-wife doesn't get any sort of comeuppance and 2) there is a lame subplot involving a Britney Spears type character whose life Qui-Gon saves near the beginning of the movie while on assignment. Said subplot is revisited at the tail end of the movie for no good reason. Maybe that was just in the extended cut?
Pain score: 1 of 10.
Special note on the snacks this week. I was recently in the states for a shopping trip and brought back a four pack of bottled A&W Rootbeer Floats. This is the kind of product I love. It's only available in the United States because a product like this could only exist in a place like the United States.
Think about this. This is a drink that contains (amongst a number of chemical ingredients) milk. That's right, milk. But unlike a carton of milk, you won't find this float in the dairy aisle. It's on the shelf, unrefrigerated. Disturbing.
If there is any doubt in your mind, the drink is foul. Possibly the worst snacktime beverage we have ever had.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Taken
What happens when the foreigners of the world kidnap America's teenage daughters to use as sex slaves? America sends Liam Neeson to kick their fucking ass.
Gripes:
My biggest gripe has to be with the green screen shots of people driving. They look like something out of Sinefeild. 1990 called, they want their greenscreen back. Also the girl playing the daughter was like 40 and kind of annoying so it was hard to beleive she was so naive and it was kind of okay that she got kidnapped and turned into a sex slave. Poor casting.
Overall I don't have a lot gripes with this films. It does what it advertises; Liam Neeson's daughter gets kidnapped and so he goes and kicks the kidnappers ass. These are the worst anti-American kidnapers, they're based in France, they're Albanian, in cahoots with corrupt French spies, that sell virgin American daughters to Middle-Eastern sheiks via corrupt business men. American headline fears rolled up into one neat package, I'm surprised they weren't doing it to encourage Global Warming. Retired CIA special Operative Liam Neeson goes after them, tortures them, kills them, and finally delivers his daughter into the hands of an American teen pop star analogue to get career training. Ironically his daughter's kidnapping experiences have given her some of the training to be an American Teen pop star already, half naked dancing and all. So in a way Neason saves his daughter from being pimped out to Saudi Sheiks to be pimped out to the American public. USA USA USA.
What worked:
It feels good. Seeing foreign terrorists and their like get horribly killed by mild-mannered Neeson is strangely satisfying. Every man in that theatre could sympathise with Neason, if it was my daughter I would do the same. Of course I'm not a CIA operative so probably I would just roll up on the floor and cry and call the police or something.
Neason is a good action star. He creates a real three dimensional person here not just some mindless killing machine and it helped to get me involved in the story because the script certainly didn't.
Mediocrity Scale:
Just Above Mediocre
Better than D&D:
Yes, cohesive story and cathartic violence.
Food:
Awful Awful things. 5 Pogos which are disgusting in themselves but washed down with a horrible abomination that Jason brought from the USA; A&W rootbeer float in a bottle. All the goodness of a Root beer float, in a bottle. It was super sweet. Like cheap ice cream that melted in root beer syrup, then was left out in the sun until rotted. It made me want to barf. If someone asked "what is robot jizz like?" I would point them in the direction of A&W rootbeer float in a bottle.
Gripes:
My biggest gripe has to be with the green screen shots of people driving. They look like something out of Sinefeild. 1990 called, they want their greenscreen back. Also the girl playing the daughter was like 40 and kind of annoying so it was hard to beleive she was so naive and it was kind of okay that she got kidnapped and turned into a sex slave. Poor casting.
Overall I don't have a lot gripes with this films. It does what it advertises; Liam Neeson's daughter gets kidnapped and so he goes and kicks the kidnappers ass. These are the worst anti-American kidnapers, they're based in France, they're Albanian, in cahoots with corrupt French spies, that sell virgin American daughters to Middle-Eastern sheiks via corrupt business men. American headline fears rolled up into one neat package, I'm surprised they weren't doing it to encourage Global Warming. Retired CIA special Operative Liam Neeson goes after them, tortures them, kills them, and finally delivers his daughter into the hands of an American teen pop star analogue to get career training. Ironically his daughter's kidnapping experiences have given her some of the training to be an American Teen pop star already, half naked dancing and all. So in a way Neason saves his daughter from being pimped out to Saudi Sheiks to be pimped out to the American public. USA USA USA.
What worked:
It feels good. Seeing foreign terrorists and their like get horribly killed by mild-mannered Neeson is strangely satisfying. Every man in that theatre could sympathise with Neason, if it was my daughter I would do the same. Of course I'm not a CIA operative so probably I would just roll up on the floor and cry and call the police or something.
Neason is a good action star. He creates a real three dimensional person here not just some mindless killing machine and it helped to get me involved in the story because the script certainly didn't.
Mediocrity Scale:
Just Above Mediocre
Better than D&D:
Yes, cohesive story and cathartic violence.
Food:
Awful Awful things. 5 Pogos which are disgusting in themselves but washed down with a horrible abomination that Jason brought from the USA; A&W rootbeer float in a bottle. All the goodness of a Root beer float, in a bottle. It was super sweet. Like cheap ice cream that melted in root beer syrup, then was left out in the sun until rotted. It made me want to barf. If someone asked "what is robot jizz like?" I would point them in the direction of A&W rootbeer float in a bottle.
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