Taken 3

This review may contain spoilers!

Liam Neeson should've stopped at the second one, at least that had some sense of consistency from the first one. I would give Taken 3 a 6/10.

Let's get one thing very clear about these films, the stunts and the fight choreography are something else. I mean the fluidity with how the action unfolds in really quite wicked to see. There was some very wicked cinematography and editing that captured this action epic unfold.

Liam Neeson, who played Bryan Mills, approached the role with the same caring badass Dad approach; and frankly it works he does a phenomenal job. Maggie Grace, who played Kim Mills, gave a strong performance within this film; her confrontational attitude really brought her to the forefront of the plot. Leland Orser, who played Sam, is a great source of not just comedic relief but displays of a minor character that becomes an audience beloved; his near death within this film was absolutely one of the high points in terms of dramatic intensity.

Within this film it was Forest Whitaker, who played Franck Dotzler, that gave a stand out performance. I was just really impressed the wit and sudden displays of intuition we as an audience saw Whitaker put into Dotzler. He was certainly a strong match for Neeson's Mills and stole the show from him without a doubt.

This film had one of the worst Taken plots to date; the plot of Stuart suddenly being a bad guy was so random and confusing that it completely derailed the great run of action films the Taken franchise had going. Not to mention that the pacing dragged, just when we thought it was all over it kept going with a plot twist that wasn't all that surprising or significant. The pregnancy sub-plot also felt like a bit of a stretch. The music suffered in a very similar way to Transformers: Age of Extinction, they repeated the same song that had been made or bought for the film over and over again.

Famke Janssen, who played Lenore St. John, continued giving us the character that we wish had been killed off a lot sooner; her natural snarkiness and double standard dialogue had made her a poor character for years. Dougray Scott, who played Stuart St. John, was one of the worst Taken villains yet; he lacked an intimidating presence and his entire character felt very confused. Sam Spruell, who played Oleg Malankov, made the film feel more comedy than action; his villain was all basic stuntwork and big guns without any real threat.