Taken 3

Ratings: 6.0/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Action Thriller

Shaky camera work, shallow plot and mediocre fight scenes. One of Forest Whitaker's worst performances, and something major was lacking - coolness. Liam Neeson wasn't as kickass this time round, and because of the forced twist in the story (which was pretty obvious), it made his role less cool, less invincible. To top it, the showdown with one of the major villains felt like a Hollywood version of Ultraman. There you see Liam Neeson being "owned" big time... and just when he was about to get killed, somehow he gained full life and owned the s*** out of the villain, like some computer game character. Boooooooo...

Needless to say, I was utterly disappointed. Liam Neeson had a team of his old pals to help him out, which again negated the expectations of Taken fans. Though his team consisted of a couple of likeable characters, isn't the Taken franchise supposed to be about a super-cool lone ranger taking out a whole syndicate of bad guys, single-handedly (I reiterate)?

I do hope that as the tagline goes, "It ends here". Because I would have hated to see the fall of such a great franchise. 

Liam Neeson is once again caught up in an against-all-odds-situation when he's framed for the murder of his wife. Afraid that his daughter would be harmed, he goes all out to uncover the conspiracy behind the murder, and to exact revenge, Taken-style. Instead of just "hunting", this time he's also hunted by the FBI - a love triangle gone bad. 

I realised the script whereby he said "Good Luck" to Forest Whitaker over the phone, as seen in the trailer, was cut short in the actual movie. It wasn't as what was shown in the trailer, a seemingly trivial, but critical point. That whole chunk load of dialogue was supposed to be the essence of Taken, and yet in the movie, it's importance was downplayed massively. 

Even though there wasn't a particular scene that was memorable, I would still have given it a go for completion sake, since I'm a self-proclaimed Taken fan. It was bad, but thankfully not bad enough.