Taken 3

They promise this is the last one, and I have to hope it is. This franchise is running out of steam, and poor Liam Neeson doesn’t have anything left to be taken.

Neeson returns as Bryan Mills – that guy with a very particular set of skills (who needs an awesome line of dialogue like that in this movie). He still is struggling to be a good father to Kim (Maggie Grace) and does his best to be a good friend to his ex-wife, Lennie (Famke Janssen).

Lennie has been having troubles with her current husband, Stuart (Dougray Scott), which is pushing her closer and closer to Bryan, but the honorable man is doing his best to behave himself. When he gets a text from her asking to meet and talk, Bryan grabs some bagels and heads back to his place. However, he comes home to find Lennie has been murdered, and the cops are right behind him suspecting he is the killer (The LAPD responds so quickly you would think they had ESP).

Knowing his only chance of finding the real killers and protecting his daughter is to run, Bryan dispatches with those officers and finds himself on the lam being chased by quirky detective Frank Dotzler (Forest Whitaker).

Who is behind Lennie’s murder?

Why?

Don’t worry about seeing the first two Taken movies. They really don’t have much impact on this one, other than to make you realize they were so much better.

Director Olivier Megaton (that name HAS to be made up) along with writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen present a very thin, predictable mystery lacking the campiness and spirit of the first two Taken movies. Those two might have been bad films, but they were over-the-top fun because we enjoy watching Liam Neeson kicking booty (especially us men of a certain age who find inspiration watching the senior citizen destroy dudes half his age).

Taken 3 feels like it is running on cruise control. Bryan has lost some of the savageness that was so shocking and defining in the first two movies, and the script lacks all of those great moments you want to repeat to your friends. Neeson still has that perfect, gravelly, matter-of-fact delivery of cheesy, but threatening dialogue. Yet, he doesn’t get enough of it to be fun or exciting outside of a scene or two. Taken 3 is a series of chases and fights.

Besson and Kamen also fail to make the most of their other greatest asset in Taken 3 – Forest Whitaker. Dotzler is given some quirky personality traits that don’t have any purpose other than to be quirky, and the audience is craving more interaction between him and Bryan. Neeson and Whitaker are great together the few times we do get to see them. Each one has the ability to be a perfect adversary and ally to the other, but I guess moments like that would interfere with the fights and chases.

Along with Bryan inexplicably escaping from situations like he is a cross between David Blaine and Superman along with a few holes in the logic, Taken 3 adds up to failure.

Taken 3 is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and for brief strong language.