I watched this tonight. The beginning is terrible. All kinds of terrible. He buys a karaoke machine for his daughters 17th birthday (she looks 25), her mom's new rich dude buys her a horse. They quibble over whether she should be allowed to go to Paris to see some museums... turns out she's going around Europe following U2. Despite concerns raised by Liam Neeson's character, he relents and decides its best not to smother her, and lets her go on her groupie Euro-trip.
I'm afraid that - as a person who has seen Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando - I just can't appreciate any subpar variations of the daughter-has-been-kidnapped formula. Commando keeps it simple: you see a montage of Arnie and the kid eating cerial and laughing, General Kirby arrives to tell Arnie members of his old unit have been killed, and gives him security guards but his home is attacked and his daughter is kidnapped anyway. One liners and violent death ensues. Its CLASSIC.
The beginning of Taken just isn't. Its lame. However, once Neesons daughter is approached by some French weasel it gets real.
She gets kidnapped, taken to a bunch of places where kidnapped girls are raped and hooked on heroin, so they have a dependency on the drugs. Once dependent, they're trafficked to their final destination as a prostitute. We're told from kidnapping, it'll be 96 hours until she's never seen again. Its up to Neeson, to track her down and save her, maiming and killing everyone along the way. Ridiculous Hostel-esque bidding scene, and eye-makeup wearing Albanians aside, its got some good action. Violent, gory action.
I lol'd when he shot the french dude's wife.
I've already planned tomorrow's braindead adrenalin garbage action movie... Death Race!
:
