Movie Review: Taken

Synopsis: A former spy (Liam Neeson) relies on his old skills to save his daughter, who has been kidnapped while traveling abroad in Europe and is being forced into the slave trade.

A pretty slick, mindless, action flick that's actually a lot of fun. It's really just a revenge story with Liam Neeson getting most of the screen time and carrying it. It sort of feels like it's lifted right out of the 80s to me, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just that the bad guys are super stupid and might want to take a few fighting and shooting lessons.

One problem I had really was the casting. Neeson does a great job with the acting bit, but I really didn't buy him as the action hero/tough guy as much as I would have say Jason Statham or Jet Li or somebody. Him beating up a room full of tough guys while 100 of their bullets miss him by inches gets a bit comical after a bit. His character is just "too good". Also, the role of his daughter, who was supposed to be 17, is played by an actress who's easily 25. To compensate they had her act more like she was 12 at times to show how she was still a "little girl" I guess and that got a bit old really quickly.

But overall it's still a lot of mindless fun, has a quick pace (once you get by the first 15 minutes or so of character establishment) and is loaded with preposterous action. It's nothing too memorable really but good for a quick adrenaline fix.

7/10