«Taken 3» feels even more contrived than its predecessor, and the scariest part is that it doesn’t seem to be the end.
Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) has finally officially retired. The Albanian gangsters are a thing of the past – now he’s taking care of his grown-up daughter (Maggie Grace) and trying to reconnect with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen). But trouble finds the former special agent himself – one day, returning home, he finds Lenore dead in his bed. And a minute later, the police burst in, convinced that Bryan killed her.
Younger moviegoers may not know the “Death Wish” film series with Charles Bronson, but in its time, the cycle was very popular – despite the fact that with each new film, it fell deeper into the abyss of absurdity. The idea of an architect avenging his raped and murdered wife worked great in the first film, but when Bronson’s character’s daughter, housekeeper, the daughter of his new chosen one, and, for dessert, another bride were killed in the sequels, the dark and gloomy story turned into a farce.
“Taken” is following the same path. The plot of the sequel already made one recall the saying that a shell should not fall into the same funnel twice, but the third film spits on all sayings and omens – when even the second film, clearly sucked out of thin air, collects eight of its budgets at the box office, there is no time for decency, but as in the joke, “what is there to think about, you have to shake it!”. And, in fact, they shook it – it is still necessary to look for a more far-fetched, stupid and boring action movie than “Taken 3”, but lo and behold, the fifty million dollars invested in it briskly returned in two incomplete weeks of release.
A Lazy Sequel
What’s worse, “Taken 3” is not just a weak film, it is a lazy and sloppy film, from which almost every frame screams that its creators are simply working on an encore of a number that they themselves are more tired of than bitter radish and for which they seem to be even a little ashamed. Trying to get rid of the unpleasant “obligation” as quickly as possible, the authors miss the most ridiculous pearls – like a police detective who, throughout the film, creaking his brains, “guesses” about what any more or less attentive viewer will pay attention to immediately. And moreover, this “guess” never shoots! The shining investigator informs Bryan that “actually, I realized a long time ago that you are innocent” already in the epilogue, when all the intrigues are revealed, and the villains are erased into powder.
Action Without Thrill
However, the last phrase in this case is not entirely true – Bryan becomes softer over the years. If he did not stand on ceremony with the French Albanians, then at home he has to be discerning – after all, most of the time he is opposed not by patented bandits, but by police officers, and he treats them as carefully as possible. No, of course, closer to the finale, Russian thugs will enter the arena, who can be crumbled into Olivier salad without regard to the law, but you still have to live to see this, and “Taken 3” will do everything to tire you with a shaking camera, incomprehensible editing and that unbearable monotony of bad action movies, which even manage to turn action into routine.
Will There Be a “Taken 4”?
It only remains to hope that the permanent producer of the film cycle, Luc Besson, will still remember his conscience and will not decide to continue the series, the third film of which was released with the tagline “This is the end”. Although the “New Beginning” feint has not been canceled yet, plus we have already gone through this – after the release of the second film, Liam Neeson said in an interview that you should not wait for the third film, and now he is ready to sign up for the fourth part. That’s what 20 million dollars per role does.