Taken 3 - L'ora della verità

In the beginning, former special forces expert Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) found that his daughter was taken in Paris while, in the sequel, he himself was taken in Istanbul. Clearly Neeson took a bit of persuading to play the role a third time, but it would appear that three factors persuaded him: first, he didn't want to do any travelling this time (so all the shooting -in both senses of the word - is in the overly-familiar Los Angeles where he goes "down the rabbit hole"); second, apparently he didn't think anyone should be taken this time (and the writers obeyed the injunction until near the end when they just couldn't resist any more); and third, he wanted the money.

This is a movie which divides the critics and the public: the former have been very condescending about it but the later enjoy Mills using his special skills again and again (and you can't really blame them). The bad guys here are (mostly) Russians who have terrible accents and awful clothes (especially underwear), but it is always a pleasure to see Forest Whitaker (an intelligent member of the LAPD who knows the significance of a warm bagel). The tag line in the advertisements for "Taken 3" is "It ends here" and I think that would be a sensible decision (although I wouldn't guarantee it).

Let's review.

(Quoting from my IMDb reviews of the first two) Taken 1 was one of those unexpected surprises that keeps the wheels in Tinseltown turning. It turned Neeson, a very competent actor, into filmdom's oldest and newest action hero. A neat trick. It was actually a very well made product and even with all the attention, still under-rated. It was better than people thought.

OK, to be clear. Neeson was not getting any younger and when offered Taken 2, he took it. Sorry for the pun. Taken 2 was not so much a film as an IQ test. If you thought it was in the same class as Taken 1, you failed the test. Sorry. The truth hurts.

To atone for Taken 2, Neeson did the Tombstone flic. It was great and showed the world he was still an A-list actor. Apology accepted.

Hollywood never ever leaves money on the table. Which brings us to Taken 3. Not really a Taken movie, more of what you would expect if they wanted to do a TV series on the Neeson character and they started with a long pilot.

It is much better than Taken 2 but then again so is footage of your dog's birthday party.

It is not bad. Depends on your expectations.

High expectations, you will not be happy.

Bored and want to spend time with Liam?You could do worse.

3 stars might be a little harsh seeing as I did enjoy this film, but I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. Seemed like a movie made by idiots for idiots. Anyone who is mildly intelligent will find it laughable.

Where do I start, the way this film was shot was poor at best, no scene lasted longer the 3 minutes to try and achieve the same relentless pace we enjoyed from the first Taken movie. This was even worse during any action sequence where there would be about 20 different shots in a space of 30 seconds showing pretty much the same event from pointless angles.

The dialogue, so cheesy, they put in every cliché line from any action movie you can think of, one dimensional characters sounding like idiots. There was a moment in this film where Mills plugs in a USB into a LAPD computer and the computers voices says "You are currently accessing the LAPD hidden files" just in case people in the cinema missed this.

This movie treats its audience like they are slow, and I feel you actually have to be to enjoy it for what it is. Some of the actions sequences were so unrealistic even a 9 your boy would find it a push to believe let alone us adults. Poor way to end a dying trilogy. Hopefully it will now stay dead.

One of the worst movie editing I've ever seen in my life for an action movie. That killed the movie for me. I think they should just withdraw Taken 2 and Taken 3 and admit that they should have stopped at the first one.

This movie was so boring, and when you expected to see some action scenes, you were getting yourself in the paranoid mind of a director who wanted to experiment on the poor audience. My eyes still hurt from the crappy editing of this movie.

Guys please stop here, enough, no more Taken sequels. With each one of them you're killing the hype that the first one created.

I love this series. I can't for life of me understand why anybody would review this poorly, yet I see bad reviews. Clearly those people are nitpicking. This is a classy action film. It follows really well in the footsteps of those that proceeded it. Liam Neeson is just a great action star. He knows when to pour it on, and when to back off so it's not too much. That's really important in this genre, because any misstep can easily make the movie look phony, cheap - or just bad acting.

The only absurd part of the movie was the swapping out of actors for Stuart St. John's part. The first movie had him as a kind, old balding man and in this film he's been transformed into a suave, young, tanned husband. Huh? It serves the movie well, but doesn't follow what we saw in the first film with any accuracy.

This movie has all the essential elements of the first TAKEN - just distributed slightly differently. Forest Whitaker adds a nice touch.

This is an action movie worth watching. Hollywood - please make TAKEN 4!!