TAKEN 2

Liam Neeson continues to capitalise on his career hand-break turn into hard-boiled action hero, with this mechanical, shameless cash-in of a sequel, TAKEN 2.  Despite being directed competently by the deliciously named Olivier Megaton (TRANSPORTER 3), this movie is really the brain-fart of writer-producer Luc Besson, and betrays all his simplistic sexual and racial politics.  As the flick opens, Neeson's super security guard Bryan Mills takes a job in Turkey, after which he is joined by his teenage daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and his ex-wife-on-whom-he-is-crushing Lenore (Famke Janssen).  Ex-husband and wife are soon kidnapped by the vengeful father of the goon Bryan killed in the original movie, leaving Kim alone in the hotel, also prey to hitmen.  The first half of the film sees Kim guided improbably by her father to locate and help him escape. The second half sees her safely deposited in the US Embassy and Bryan return to the fray to rescue his ex-wife and do bad things to bad guys.  

Of course, the story has so many plot holes and improbabilities that one could drive a horse and cart through it.  (Not least the fact that as Istanbul is not the capital of Turkey, it doesn't have a US Embassy!)  But that's not the point of a movie like this.  The point is whether or not you find the chase sequences entertaining and tense.  I didn't.  They felt derivative and "tab A into slot B".  Of course, Liam Neeson is enormously likeable, and we root for him, but this movie really is far tamer and more boring than the original.  Moreover, the politically dubious depiction of evil muslim gangsters remains troubling. 

TAKEN 2 is on release in France, Hong Kong, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Argentina, Bahrain, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Ireland, Israel, Kuwait, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore and the UK. It opens tomorrow in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, the USA and Vietnam. It opens on October 11th in Cambodia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Peru, Slovenia; on October 12th in Bulgaria, Estonia, India and South Africa; on October 19th in Panama; on October 26th in Lithuania; on November 22nd in the Netherlands; on December 20th in Macedonia and on January 11th in Japan.

TAKEN 2 has a running time of 92 minutes and is rated PG-13.

TRANSPORTER 3 - blissfully camp!

TRANSPORTER 3 is sheer genius. It's the B-movie action thriller shorn of anything extraneous - sensible plot, character development - shot like a car commercial on steroids and featuring the campest action hero since CONAN. Jason Statham is becoming as iconic as Michael Caine - another actor who plays the same accent and the same implacable diffidence in every single movie - another actor whose unconventional looks apparently rule him out as a sex symbol. Statham's career is a beacon of hope for all men and all actors!

In TRANSPORTER 3 it's business as usual. "Frank" is our hero - a terse driver who delivers "packages" against all odds. Within the first twenty minutes, a car has been driven into his house containing a (allegedly) hot Ukrainian chick. Frank has to deliver her to Budapest. If he wanders more than 75 metres from his car he blows up. It's a superb conceit because it creates ever more ridiculous chase scenes and fight scenes. See Frank beat up eight men WITH HIS SUIT! See Frank chase down a speeding Audi ON A KID'S BIKE! Pure Action Gold.

TRANSPORTER 3 is on release in France, the USA, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, India and the UK. It opens next week in Belgium and Brazil; on December 19th in Estonia; on December 31st in Egypt; on January 1st in Singapore; on January 8th in Germany and South Korea; on January 16th in Poland; on January 23rd in Romania; on February 5th in Australia and on February 26th in the Czech Republic.

TAKEN - 24 the movie

TAKEN is a slick, quick thriller that sticks in the throat. Liam Neeson plays a Jack-Bauer-like US special ops agent whose daughter, Kim, is like Kim Bauer, kidnapped. This being a piece of neo-con agit-prop, the kidnappers don’t have a grudge against her father, or indeed, stepfather, either of which would’ve been interesting. Rather, the kidnappers are improbably traffickers in sex slaves who have decided that their business model would be more profitable if they kidnapped rich young tourists rather than duping poor East Europeans. Now, I can see why this might save on “transport costs” but surely if you and some complicit French rozzers are running a sex-trafficking business you’d rather not attract the attention of rich, angry Yanquis parents putting pressure on the local cops via an irate US embassy?

At any rate, after half an hour of mooning over his sappy daughter, Liam Neeson jumps on a plane and heads to Paris where he single-handedly uncovers the plot and discovers his daughter while killing and torturing lots of cheese-eating surrender monkeys and evil rapist towel-heads. Yes, yes, in this world, every Frenchman carries a baguette under his arm and every Muslim want to rape young Americans. In short, TAKEN is a film whose tone and content are lifted straight out of 24 and whose entire world-view was so roundly mocked in TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE. I can’t quite believe that Liam Neeson agreed to star in such xenophobic, derivative drivel.

TAKEN was released earlier this year in France, Israel, China, South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey, Spain, Australia, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Russia, Thailand, Mexico and Venezuela. It opens this weekend in the UK and Portugal and next weekend in Austria and Brazil. It opens in the USA on January 23rd 2009 and in Germany on February 5th.

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - TRANSPORTER

I'm so intrigued by the idea that Louis Leterrier would be given THE INCREDIBLE HULK to direct, that I've been going back and re-watching his previous work. What is there to suggest that he'll be able to handle the sensitive emotional content of the Hulk story, or be able to take on a strong-minded actor like Ed Norton?

A week or so ago I watched TRANSPORTER 2 and was entertained by the mindless slick car chases and combat scenes. Of course, the dialogue and emotional content were laughable but there was something endearing about the fact that the film-makers weren't even aiming for quality. At least they gave us a lot of funny one-liners as compensation.

TRANSPORTER is the lesser film. It was a cheap action film still looking for the hook that would seal its style. Jason Statham's cool-as-a-cucumber no-questions-asked driver isn't quite as hard, rule-oriented or laconic as in the sequel. His damsel in distress can barely speak English and is pure eye-candy, whereas in 2 they try to up the emotional anti by giving her a kid. So we've gone from a quick shag to quasi-fatherhood. The baddies are pretty two-dimensional in both flicks. You get a hint of homo-eroticism in 1 when Wall Street touches our hero's gloved hand. In 2, once again, its higher stakes, with lots of buff body-building.

Ultimately these movies have to be judged on how slick the action is. TRANSPORTER has some cool chase scenes in some very choice cars, and you get a bit of the computer-game like action sequences. But there's nothing as stylised nor as imaginative as the sequel.

So, TRANSPORTER makes for a decent enough action flick - perfect for DVD and pizza night. It hinted it, but hadn't crystallised the camp comic potential of the sequel, or indeed the proposed threequel. What's more, cool action aside, there's no hint of whether Leterrier will be able to pull off the emotional depth of a BATMAN BEGINS when he reimagines HULK this summer.

TRANSPORTER was originally released in 2002 and is widely available on DVD.

Random DVD round-up 3: TRANSPORTER 2

Jason Statham's career baffles me. Here he is in TRANSPORTER 2 reprising his role as Frank, the ex Special Forces tough guy who will drive anything anywhere, no questions asked. Frank has an American accent about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke's cockney in MARY POPPINS. And I guarantee that no studio would ever have put money on a skinny bald kid making it as an action hero. Still, you can't deny that Jason Statham is the world champion at spouting ridiculous dialogue and fronting absurd action sequences with a completely straight face. He never tries to wink at the camera and that alone prevents his movies descending from mindless fun into painful self-parody.

And let me reiterate: TRANSPORTER 2 is mindless. The plot is ridiculous; the emotional depth of the characters incredible; the action sequences lifted from a computer game. (Colombian drug-lords kidnap the cute kid of a millionaire DEA official that Frank happens to be chauffeuring at the time: They return the kid but not before unleashing a biological weapon.)

But for all that, the movie is fun, watchable and never dull. Writer Luc Besson may not be able to string a credible sentence together, but he knows how to make a satisfyingly "twisty" plot. And director Louis Laterrier (soon to be famous for THE INCREDIBLE HULK) also knows how to shoot a fast-paced, visually thrilling action sequence.

I also have to say that there is something wonderful about a movie as straightforwardly entertaining as TRANSPORTER 2. Critics may get sniffy, but what's wrong with a good old-fashioned action flick? I'm totally unsurprised that the movie took so much money, and look forward to the threequel, which will be directed by the brilliantly named Olivier Megaton.

TRANSPORTER 2 was released in 2005 and stomped on box office predictions to set a new record for Labor Day weekend. It is available on DVD.