Review: 'Taken 3' starring Liam Neeson and Forest Whitaker

Well, after two formulaic  Taken flicks of grizzled old Liam Neeson kicking ass like a spry young chicken, those looking for something new have finally got their wish. Taken 3 breaks the mold for nigh indestructible badass ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills; there's nobody "taken' for once and instead of punching guys in the neck he actually has to work out the pieces of a mystery, one that has cost him something dear. Be careful what you wish for because watching Bryan follow clues is pretty lame when all anybody wants to see is him dispatching bad guys.

The first Taken worked because, hey, this is gentle soul Liam Neeson breaking a bunch of dudes in half to save his daughter. That's just cool to the ultimate degree. It should have ended there, though, and the sequel showed just how brittle the whole premise really was. Another family member gets swiped and tough guy Bryan is looking like the least protective parent ever. The only upside was the ending, which seemed like the perfect setup for an explosive wrap-up to the trilogy. It concluded with a vow that a vanquished foe's sons would continue the vendetta forever. So surely that's where Taken 3 goes, right? Nope. Instead it has practically zero continuity with the prior flicks...except that Bryan seems to have a knack for beating up anybody of questionable nationality. Instead much of the focus is on the personal connections between Bryan and his family, although these bonds hardly resonate because we know that in the end none of it matters; punching things does.

This time around Bryan is playing the good father to Kim (Maggie Grace) and the hovering ex-husband to Lenore (Famke Janssen), a fact which doesn't make her new husband Stuart (Dougray Scott) happy. The two former lovebirds can't stay away from one another, but when Bryan comes home to find her murdered, he becomes suspect numero uno and the target of top cop, Detective Dotzler (Forest Whitaker). Dotzler's a smart cookie; we know this because he plays with a rubber band and carries a chess piece. Seriously. The cops love doughnuts, too. This is a Luc Besson flick and subtlety is not one of his strengths.

So it's up to Bryan to clear his name, find the real culprit, and hit them in the nose really really hard.  The path to getting there is incredibly dull, though, with the action taking a serious backseat to Bryan's clue finding and personal issues. Kim is not only dealing with grief but also a sudden pregnancy, and Bryan is wondering how time flew by so fast. Awwww. Meanwhile the cops bumble around, including Dotzler, always one step behind Bryan and never really impeding his search. Is this not sounding like a Taken film to you? Try watching it. There are brief spells of action that allow the awesomely-named director Olivier Megaton to blow stuff up and flip cars, but they feel strangely disconnected from the rest of the film. Maybe it's the boring California locale. Bryan Mills and his "particular set of skills" were made for the grimy Slavic underbelly, not the sunbaked beaches of Cali. It's hard to figure exactly what Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen were thinking. Surely they had to know this wouldn't be a satisfying payoff. But maybe that was the point? The die-hard fans will surely demand there be a Taken 4 to give Bryan a proper send-off with a proper body count.

 Rating: 2 out of 5