“Fri afternoon, chatting with the boss while waiting for other meeting attendees to show up. Inevitably, the conversation turns to my movie plans for the weekend, which includes Taken 3. “”Oh I’ve never seen any of those. How are they”” “”They’re fun”” (or maybe I said entertaining). “”Any good?”” “”They’re fun”” (or entertaining).
And so was Taken 3. This is the first one I actually manage to see in the theater. When the first came out, I didn’t think too much of it. I was only starting to ramp up my movie game, and Neeson hadn’t yet established himself as an action star. But it picked up steam, so I got a copy the following black Friday (it was a high priority movie to locate). When the sequel came out, I sorta shrugged it off, expecting it to be a weak knock off. That one too got good buzz, so I also picked it up the following black Friday.
I liked that this time, we’re back on home turf. No one is really “”taken”” how they were the first two times around. Well, kind of a little, but Neeson’s Mills gets to show off his skills on domestic territory, trying to clear his name from a crime that gets attached to him. For much of the film, he’s going up against Forrest Whitaker’s law enforcement officer, trying to bring Mills in. Different dynamic than what we’ve seen before, mostly because we get both sides of the coin, and it was a great way to shake things up. Eventually the plot lines did get a little murky and I lost some of the details, but by that point, the action was really kicking into high gear, so it didn’t matter.
Something else I realized I really like about this franchise is that daughter Kim is a pretty tough chick. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t quite so smart in the first one and got herself into all sorts of trouble, but she got better. Her name may be Kim, but she’s certainly not Kim Bauer. Instead of getting attacked by cougars while daddy’s off fighting the bad guys, this Kim not only holds her own, but she finds ways to make herself useful. And she’s one feisty and stubborn gal, not some helpless waif. Points for her.
Oh also, points for Dylan Bruno being in the cast. I’d recently finished marathoning Numb3rs, and lamented that this real life MIT alum (who’d played the jock-iest FBI agent on the show) hadn’t been seen much since. I’m happy to have seen him here.
Taken 3 – \m/ \m/ \m/ \n”