Fakin'

We watched Taken (2008) a while ago, but somehow I never got around to blogging about it. I guess I might as well get that out of the way.

That's kind of the spirit we watched it in - It's kind of a classic action flick, we've got nothing better to watch, should be good. In a lot of ways, it was good: it moves right along, good fight sequences, some classic tough guy lines. In some other ways, not so good.

The setup is Liam Neeson is a divorced dad with a teenage daughter. He has retired from covert ops to be near his daughter, although his ballbusting ex, Maggie Grace, does everything she can to keep them apart. You see, she resents that he was never there when she was growing up. But nobody mentions that he has retired from spying, and spends all his time obsessively stalking her now. Shouldn't Maggie be pissed that he has gotten too clingy, not that he is too distant?

Anyway, his daughter goes on a trip to France - a trip he doesn't want her to go on. Of course, she gets kidnapped by white slavers right away. What kind of daredevil would take the risk of travelling to Paris? She was practically asking for it.

Fortunately, she is kidnapped while talking to Dad on the phone, so he gets to deliver the classic, "What I have are a very particular set of skills.." speech to the kidnappers before he heads off alone to France. By the way, he has a bunch of ex-ops buddies, but he doesn't try to bring them along. Why would he need to? He's a one-man army.

In case you can't tell, this movie annoyed the heck out of me. Ms. Spenser's big objection was the idea that human trafficking is mainly done for rich Arabs on yachts. By that time, I had given up.

Still, the ass-kicking was fun... It seems Luc Besson was involved. I usually like his stuff better than this. Oh well, I'll probably watch the sequel.