Tooken

For a spoof movie there should be little to expect. Spoofing the Taken series is something which surprisingly took a while to be made (Tooken was released after Taken 3- so they waited until the Taken franchise was complete). With the instant success of the first Taken film, one would have expected a spoof film have been made immediately.

This film is quite short in runtime which benefits it as they ensure it doesn't drag on. Some clever gags, the obvious and expected over the top humor, a lot more gross humor (dick jokes) than expected, cheap one liners and innuendoes.

The lead actor impersonating Liam Neeson does a great job, the wife has a resemblance to the Taken wife of Lenore and for some reason the daughter is more overly specialized here.

Don't expect anything great but in comparison to other spoof films such as Epic Movie or Disaster Movie, Tooken is a clear step above. Reason being, there is a consistency in plot and it doesn't seem like a bunch of random scenes sketched together. It has its moments, some things work while some fall flat. Which was expected.

We didn't need a sequel to "Taken". It was a fine movie on it's own and one that cemented Liam Neeson as a bona fide action movie star. And since it made money we got a couple sequels that weren't necessary and they weren't as good. But you know what we really didn't need? A spoof of said movie.

Where do I even begin? They literally reference the classic phone call scene at the start of the movie. But in context it doesn't even make any sense. Our hero is in the delivery room, his wife is giving birth and the doctor passes out. Just like that. I guess this is supposed to be funny? And our hero is now supposed to delver the baby. So he threatens it, by giving a truncated version of the phone call speech. Is this supposed to be comedy?

As the story goes on he's lousy when it comes to things being taken, or maybe tooken in this case, around him from his ex-wife leaving to his daughter's virginity. And then, for no reason, gangsters from Albania decide to stick explosives into puppies. Why? I guess they're supposed to be evil or something? And since his puppy has also been explosiveized, he's pushed too far and does something about it.

There was no reason for this movie to be made. Absolutely none. It's not funny. It's not well done. And it totally bombed at the box office showing that parody and spoofs really need a deft hand to make them work.

I love to see all the negative reviews of people expecting a big budget movie.

Go into it expecting a low budget spoof, and this movie is awesome.

It's very creative, jokes are funny and not just low-class humor, and the story is pretty good for a spoof movie.

On a side note, voting 1 star because you dislike a movie (or 10 because you like it) only serves to skew the results.

It shows that IMDb is now ruled by fan boys and haters instead of actual reviewers.

This movie was much better than any recent spoofs. 6/10.

They could've done a funny movie. Let's face it, each sequel to Taken became more and more of a spoof of itself, so this movie wasn't necessary. With that said. This movie sucked.

I do not recommend. I gave this a 1-star rating, and it's not a solid one-star. More like 1/10 of 1-star. Yes, folks, it was that bad. Do not watch this expecting a funny take on the Taken series. If you want a good spoof on a movie, "The Three Musketeers" with Kiefer Sutherland was good. "Hot Shots, Part Deux" was fun. "Tooken" sucks so much, it puts porn stars to shame. Again, yes, it was that bad. If you watch this, don't say you weren't warned.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

In this send up of the Taken films, the middle aged Irish hero has come down in the world from working for the CIA, and everything around him, from his ex-wife to his daughter's cherry, seems to be going away. But when some Albanian gangsters hatch a plot to put explosive devices in the local puppies, including his beloved own, he's pushed too far and swears to bring them down.

If I had been a bigger fan of the Taken franchise this ultra low budget misfire is sending up, I might have been able to relate to it a little better, and enjoyed it maybe a little more, but that's a big gamble. It begs the retrospective question, if the script had such potential in the first place, why a bigger studio didn't snap it up? It pulls out all the gross out, juvenile stops it can, but I've never seen anything so unfunny in quite a while, with an incoherent, messy plot that makes it even harder to endure. If the script had been better written, and some better finance had been behind it, it could have been on to something, but as it is, it's just hopeless. Even the title is pants. *