The Taken franchise started off great with their first movie “Taken.” Then it began to get silly with the sequel “Taken 2.” Now the third installment of the franchise, “Taken 3,” directed by Olivier Megaton, has made this series feel old and tired.
The story starts with Brian Mills (Liam Neeson) visiting his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), who was kidnapped in the first film, and meeting with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) who tells him she still has feelings for him and her current marriage is not going too well. After being threatened by Lenore’s husband, Stuart St. John (Dougray Scott), he goes home only to find Lenore texting to meet him the next day. When he comes back to his apartment the following day he discovers the lifeless body of Lenore, and the LAPD arrives to arrest him for her murder. Escaping from the police, Brian is now on the run and trying to investigate what happened to Lenore. While he is doing this, Inspector Franck Dotzler (Forest Whitaker) is hot on Brian’s tail, leading the manhunt to capture him.
The movie itself is nothing new as it follows the same formula as the past two movies. Liam Neeson still does a good job at playing the role of the retired U.S. spy who is very serious and does everything to get answers. However, the other actors are still terrible and bring nothing to this movie but awkward dialogue and hokey acting.
The action sequences in the movie are boring as well, and feel as though they have been done to death, and have been done better in other films.
The film has multiple flaws in it. The direction of the writing is horrible as the plot to the film never has a good point. The movie feels as though it was only made to try and squeeze some money from the viewers who want to see explosions and gunfights.
“Taken 3” is anything but a good film. With all of its cliché action sequences and characters, it’s no wonder this film has horrendous ratings and negative commentary from critics. Though Liam Neeson is a great actor and plays his part convincingly as he has in the past two Taken films, he alone cannot save this film. This film franchise is just like the “Expendables” franchise and the “Fast and the Furious” franchise, bleeding money out of a small demographic by producing the same story again and again.
This film is only for those who have nothing better to go see or like cliché action movies that don’t have original plots. This film gets a rating of 1.5/5.
