Review of Abduction (2011) by Cameron J — 10 Apr 2012

As creepily obsessed as he is with Bella, it was only a matter of time before Jacob just went ahead and "abducted" her. Of course, I'd imagine that ol' Jakey Boy didn't count on having to face off against Mikael Blomkvist, and with Doc Ock not being entirely trustworthy, he's having to count on Ellen Ripley to join him in taking out Rachel Weisz to avenge Maria Bello after her violent death at the hands of Weisz for stealing the Evelyn O'Connell role out from under her. Yeah right; after the reviews of the last installment of "The Mummy" series, I think Weisz will just go ahead and let Bello keep that role, which is a shame, because if Weisz did have a violent grudge on Bell, then there would have been just a slightly better chance of us getting a crazy movie like the one I just described. Man, I wish this movie way that cool, but I think this project was doomed the second they decided to have the should-be awesome main guy be the guy from "Twilight", Taylor... Swift, or which ever creepily tight-faced Taylor he's supposed to be. I wonder how many times I can say, "creepily" before someone asks, "Is that even a real word?" I don't know; how many hack editing missteps does it take before the editor says, "Wow, maybe that wasn't a very good cut"? Okay, the film, surprisingly, really isn't that bad, but neither is it that good, yet it doesn't get to mere mediocrity without the occasional saving grace that's strong enough to keep it going.

The pretty bad soundtrack notwithstanding, the film undeniably starts off, not necessarily strong, but enjoyable. It's a touch slow here and there, and the development segment outstays its welcome after a while, but it's perfectly passable, and even after this film goes off to slip up again and again, there's some decent action here and there. Now, there are few terribly upstanding action sequences, but the choreography in every battle is, at worst, decent and, at best, pretty, well, awesome, actually. Still, those action sequences during the weaker body of the film aren't like cases of turning mud into gold, because even after this film's rather considerable drop in quality after the development segment, it rarely, if ever falls beneath passable. It's consistently incompetent, though not terribly so, and unlike something like a "Red Riding Hood" or "Beastly", this film isn't plagued with that deeply unlikable aura of aiming for lowest-common-denominator, partially because genuine effort feels as though it's being injected here. However, while that effort creates a kind of charm that saves this mess of the film, make no mistake, this is a mess of a film, and not just after the development segment. As consistent as the film is with its charming ambition, it's almost, if not decidedly more consistent in its missteps, as well as conventions.

The film's early stages as a teen fluff piece is extremely conventional, right down its, as I said, really bad soundtrack (Sorry to bring it up again, but I can't get over the fact that these stupid kids now-a-days, or at least the people that think they know what stupid kids now-a-days like have such an awful taste in "music"), and even when the action-thriller story aspects come into play, they're not only just as conventional, but kind of spotty to the point of almost being ludacris at times. The twists and turns in the story are convoluted, a tad forced and over-the-top, adding further messiness to a story already tainted by cornball dialogue and even awkward editing. Now, when it came to timed-to-the-music quick cuts to a different scene, seeing as its such a basic trick (But still one I kind of dig), editor Bruce Cannon seemed to know what he was doing; but in every other aspect of editing, this is some pretty shoddy work, with so much incompetence that there are points where even the sound editing is off to the point of drowning out people's voices with music. Now, while the video editing isn't as spotty as that audio editing, many a scene cuts or even ends awkwardly, whether it be because Cannon cuts too late, or too soon, or just doesn't go with the right take, which isn't to say that he picks takes that make even our classic talents - like Sigourney Weaver and Alfred Molina - look bad. With all the complaints I'm hearing about how this film makes a variety of revered acting talents look weak, or even terrible, the people who have been in the business a while and recieved their praise as great talents are no less and no more than decent, with Maria Bello having an unexpected sequence of genuine emotion that she really delivers on and Michael Nyqvist being a fairly effective antagonist. Of course, the people you really need to worry about are the people who matter most: the leads, whether it be our cheesy, false-feeling love interest, the big-browed, but still pretty cute Phil Collins' daughter-I mean... um...- oh, right - Lily Collins (Sorry sweetie, but good luck shaking that off your record), or our main muchacho himself, Taylor Lautner, who is pulling a major "Bana at His Relative Best", where he's not consistently bad, but just so very mediocre, with very little charisma and the occasional moment where any level of emoting, when it's needed most, faults, sometimes embarassingly. However, where Eric Bana is just an awful actor that's too inept to even realize it (Shut up, overraters), you can really feel Lautner's ambition, giving him some degree of charm, not as the lead Nathan Haper character, but as an actor, and sure, charm isn't going to get him by his entire career, but this film, while still further testament to his weak acting abilities, still reflects some potential, and if nothing else gets you by, it is the palpable ambition of Lautner, who does not at all live up to those ambitions, but still provides enough of the acting presence to sustain your attention through all of his and film's missteps.

Overall, the film has its high points in action, but is most of all saved by admittedly charming ambition from both the filmmakers and, yes, even Taylor Lautner, yet the ambitious charmers fail to give this film that extra push past mediocrity, with the filmmakers' work going plagued by conventional, poor-dialogue-ridden and sometimes silly writing, as well as plenty of shoddy editing, and our acting leads falling flat on too many level to earn your investment in them as more than just charmingly ambitious, thus leaving "Abduction" to stand as a passable, but unrewarding mess of a mostly limp thriller.

2/5 - Mediocre.