Review of Taken 3 (2014) by Wade F — 12 Mar 2015

A clear attempt to squeeze some more dollars from already a cult action franchise, Taken 3 is a weak attempt to match the original classic while not offering anything new in particular. Formulaic, incoherent and trying to be a more conventional action than its predecessors, the final part of the franchise heavily relies on Liam Neeson and his family to carry the audience through a story that has nothing to do with kidnappings.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and their daughter Kim are trying to re-build their lives after what happened in Paris and Istanbul. With Kim in college and Lenore heading towards a divorce with her second husband and return to Bryan, things seem to be developing in the right direction for them until the unthinkable happens. On a sunny day, Lenore gets killed and Bryan finds himself in a real setup. Being the main suspected, chased by the police and with limited options left, Bryan has to do once again what we saw him doing in the previous two movies: find and kill those who took a member of his family.

The first major difference from the first two movies is the fact that there is no kidnapping in the story and everything is build-up around a more conventional action-related plot. This certainly helps Olivier Megaton's delivery in being more interesting than Taken 2 (which was almost a copy-paste of the original, but set in Istanbul. On the other side, this just makes Taken 3 similar to all other typical Hollywood actions. Predictable and with easily solvable puzzle, the final of the trilogy has far from excellent story. With two serious plot-holes it is only the presence of Liam Neeson and the refreshing adding up to the cast of Forest Whitaker as agent Frank Dotzier that make this delivery a passable one. The cat-mouse-dog game kicks hard enough to keep the action fans intrigued the charismatic presence of Neeson pleases even though the violence is not as graphic and convincing as in the previous two movies.

In conclusion, Taken 3 is far from the quality of the original movie, but scores slightly better than the second installment. It is hard to say whether the weak but kicking overall story or the magnetic Neeson is the reason for the passable level of the movie, but I would rather go for the second reason. It is truly amazing how Liam Neeson has become the most bankable and reliable classic action actor of the last two decades, having in mind that he has nothing to do with the typical muscles-pumped action actors, but in the end this is one more action movie with him that is just above the rotten line.