Taken 3 (2015) – Movie Review (Time To End The Saga)

Liam Neeson’s Taken movie series has been very successful in the first two installments as a must-watch action-thriller until the third one came with a very similar plot where CIA operative Bryan Mills again has to haunt down the baddies who are now after him for some reasons.

It seems Bryan has been living under some kind of curse so he always has to confront those elements for one reason or another. First (Taken, 2008), he tries to locate his daughter who’s been kidnapped in Paris by some human traffickers for sex slavery, and ended up killing a hell of a lot.

Then (in Taken 2, 2012) he goes on to save his ex-wife in Istanbul, Turkey, from vengeful relatives of those mobsters whom he had killed in the first film. And now with Taken 3, Bryan has to do the same old things with his extra-human skills to save his daughter after losing his wife to a group of Russian mafias in California.

As far as the story of the film is concerned, Taken 3 is linear with no such character development, and probably that’s the reason Liam Neeson has sensed it not to be a part of the franchise anymore. I mean how far can one stretch something so long to make three feature films from a one-off concept?

I guess writer Luc Besson, who is also the producer of these three, certainly had to take a few more years in developing a compelling plot than just jumping into another flick in the series.

The first one directed by Pierre Morel was a surprise hit and probably because Liam Neeson for the first time emerged more like an action star. However, Neeson has been repeatedly exploring similar genre films that make it even boring to expect one more such film in the block until and unless the movie has some new tale to offer.

Having said that, A Walk Among the Tombstones was indeed a good one for Liam Neeson as the film offers the more sensitive side of the character and not just his hard-hitting punch.

Of course, the story and direction both failed in the third and probably the final part of the Taken film series. Without going deep into the story of Taken 3, I must say that the film series was never about Bryan Mills’ daughter Kim or his ex-wife Lenore; it was merely the tussle between Mills and those baddies in all three installments. Thus in the absence of a sensible plot, directed Olivier Megaton of Taken 2 returns to direct a noisy and floppy action drama. Let’s hope it all ends here!

Watch the Movie Trailer – Taken 3

‘Taken 3’ – Liam Neeson returns to the series as Bryan Mills in the third installment of the series, this time directed by Olivier Megaton and written by Luc Besson.

Directed by Olivier Megaton
Produced by Luc Besson
Screenplay by Luc Besson Robert Mark Kamen
Cast: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Dougray Scott, Sam Spruell, and Leland Orser.
Cinematography Eric Kress
Release Date/Year: January 9, 2015 (US); January 21, 2015 (France)

Where to watch Taken 3 (2014)