Luc Besson

Liam Neeson Elevates Above-Average Action Movie ‘Taken’

BrianTT — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:20:54 -0700

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Bringing the same screen presence and gravity that he has to more serious roles like those in “Schindler’s List” and “Kinsey,” Liam Neeson turns the relatively generic “Taken” into an above-average action movie that should prove a surprising alternative for movie goers looking for a break from Super Bowl coverage this weekend.

The great Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired “preventer,” essentially Jack Bauer ten or fifteen years down the road. He’s put his violent days behind him but not forgotten the skills that made him one of the most efficient experts in his very specialized field. In the opening act of “Taken,” Mills is hanging out with friends and taking odd jobs like providing back-stage security for the latest pop starlet.

In Taken, Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, an ex-government operative who has less than four days to find his kidnapped daughter - who has been taken on her first day of vacation in Paris.
Photo credit: Stephanie Branchu/Fox

Bryan has grown a bit distant from his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), but he’s working on getting back into the life of his only child. Kim decides to travel to Europe to follow U2 with her best friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy) and Bryan reluctantly allows her to go.

Before they’re even out of the airport, Kim and Amanda are spotted by accomplices of some of the most evil people in the world, spotters for an Albanian sex ring. Kim and her friend are kidnapped, but not before Kim gets her father on the phone. He hears just enough detail that he knows he can travel to Europe and save his daughter’s life. And kill anyone who gets in his way.

Pierre Morel, the director of the very-fun “District B13,” knows that “Taken” will only work if the audience doesn’t have a chance to ask questions or allow suspension of disbelief to sneak in. Consequently, his film is one of the tautest, most expertly paced action films you’ll see all year. At around 90 minutes, “Taken” features not one wasted scene.

Only moments away from being taken by a vicious band of kidnappers, Kim (Maggie Grace) makes an urgent phone call to her father.
Photo credit: Stephanie Branchu/Fox

Some of the dialogue in “Taken” is a little over-the-top, but, honestly, there’s not much of it. The second half of the film is about a driven man looking for his daughter. There’s not a lot of room for dialogue. It’s a testament to the writers - Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen - that they don’t weigh the film down with cheesy lines or overdone monologues. There’s no room for monologues when you’re trying to save your daughter’s life.

The script is better than average and the director perfectly understands how to pace an action film like this one, but “Taken” would be nothing without Neeson. No offense to fans of Jason Statham, but movies like “Taken” don’t often see actors of this caliber in their lead roles and it make a huge difference. He is completely believable, adding an emotional gravity to his character’s journey without saying a word.

And he’s surprisingly powerful from a physical standpoint. It’s shocking to think about after the fact, but I never once doubted that the 56 year-old Neeson could totally kick the ass of everyone on-screen. You won’t often see action stars of his age that are this convincing. It will be one of the more underrated performances of the year.

In fact, if there’s a complaint about “Taken,” and this is rare for this typically bloated genre, it’s that the film is too short. The ending comes abruptly and I wish the middle act allowed for a bit more character development. There’s a fine line between taut and choppy and sometimes “Taken” could have slowed down a bit and made for an ultimately stronger film.

Having said that, I don’t think there will be a more surprisingly effective action film for a few months. “Taken” was released in Europe months ago and seemed to be unceremoniously dumped on Super Bowl weekend, a bad choice of release date considering how many action fans are probably going to be watching the big game. All signs pointed to another “January dump,” a movie that the studio didn’t know how to handle and were just trying to get off their shelf. All signs were wrong.

‘Taken’ stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Xander Berkeley, Katie Cassidy, and Jon Gries. It was written by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Pierre Morel. It opens on January 30th, 2009, and is rated PG-13.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Resident Evil: Extinction’ Screams Readiness For Franchise Extinction

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:36:22 -0600

AUSTIN, Texas – “Resident Evil: Extinction,” which opens on Friday and to the dismay of many critics didn’t screen across the U.S., is yet another cineplex excursion that’s beneath contempt.

Milla Jovovich in “Resident Evil: Extinction”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Directed by Russell Mulcahy, who is best known for the serviceably charming pulp translation of “The Shadow,” the franchise is injected with a promising Mad Max riff by writer and producer Paul W.S. Anderson – yet does nothing with it.

At best, I’ve always thought of Anderson (who directed the first film and wrote the second) as a poor man’s Stephen Sommers. To have the second consecutive sequel where Anderson couldn’t be bothered to direct (only write and produce) really says you’re in for “B”-movie hack hell.

So “Extinction” is another video game-based sequel by test-marketed numbers where everything about it was cooler in the trailer. The Mad Max stuff turns into mostly trucks driving in a desert while an imaginative attack by zombie crows plays like a video game of “The Birds”.

Ashanti in “Resident Evil: Extinction”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
At a certain point – maybe somewhere in the first act where there aren’t characters as much as feet-entering, low-angle frames – the desert-scape starts to reveal a 16th-wave Sergio Leone influence (but mostly from testosterone guitars).

The males do their acting with beard stubble while the women grit their teeth to look all hardened. All the while, model and actress Milla Jovovich is the most confounding presence of all.

I spent most of the film trying to figure out why such a luminous woman has her face so consistently digitally airbrushed. While she may have just liked how writer/director Kurt Wimmer spruced her up in “Ultraviolet,” almost every close up of her has Photoshop skin tones.

Milla Jovovich in “Resident Evil: Extinction”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
Outside of her lithe figure, I never even understood why she was repeatedly cast as an action heroine. Perhaps Sony is still paying writer Luc Besson’s bill of goods. Jovovich really only acts in two modes: frailty and penis envy. In both instances here, she has a gun.

While zombies safely remain the screen villain with the most tender, thinnest and most sliceable flesh this side of Orcs from “Lord of the Rings,” some of the Jovovich’s balletic slicing is the best action in the movie (though a lot of it is frequently ruined with lazy CGI gore).

If you aren’t sufficiently scared, the sound design will dwarf you into submission by going from silent to loud like a Pixies’ slasher score.

“Extinction” is a zombie movie bored with zombies. When one character is bitten in the first 10 minutes and keeps it a secret for the rest of the film, you wish it might’ve become bored with zombie clichés.

This is heroically juxtaposed when another character – who isn’t given solely callow character beats – nobly sacrifices himself in an explosion.

Milla Jovovich in “Resident Evil: Extinction”.
Photo courtesy of IMDb
This third “Resident Evil” is what it is: another soulless studio flick where everyone involved is going through the motions (especially the audience). While it has the beats of a movie, it’s purely product and you can’t even really begrudge it for that.

It’s a movie only ’roided zombie fans, optimistic executives and mothers can love.

Like the other two flicks, “Extinction” does have one nifty scene: the last one, which is a cliffhanger. For maybe a few naïve seconds, you’re enticed for a hypothetical movie that – depending on the box office – might or might not follow.

It’s not until you remember the tedium you’ve just sat through (itself a prolonged drag of the last movie’s cliffhanger) that it may dawn on you that the “Resident Evil” movies only find themselves when selling a completely different movie.

See our 31-image “Resident Evil 5” video game slideshow.
Read our “Resident Evil: Extinction” theatrical review.

By Shane Hazen
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com