Tag: 1 out of 4

Just when you thought we were done with Halloween movies, I pull a fast one on you. Fun Size is a barely advertised kids movie about the wonders of Halloween. It deals with teen problems like choosing a college, losing a parent, having weird siblings, and just trying to get some.

Get some what? You know what.

Dorothy and a Cat. Basically the two easiest costumes for Halloween.

Wren (Victoria Justice) is a high school senior who lives in Ohio. Her dad passed away last year, and her family has never been the same. Her mom (Chelsea Handler) is looking for love in younger men, and her younger brother Albert (Jackson Nicoll) hasn’t spoken a word since the incident.

But hey, it’s Halloween, the dad’s favorite holiday, so everyone is going to be a bit weird. Wren wanted to go party with her best friend, April (Jane Levy) at a cute boys house. A musician!  Wren doesn’t care that much, she is kind of nerdy, but April in their drive to stay cool has convinced her that he is the one for her!

Her other nerd friends too nerdy. Roosevelt (Thomas Mann), who has lesbian mothers, and Peng (Osric Chau) because he is Asian. But Wren’s horrible mother black mails her into watching Albert on Halloween, because that is the only way she will sign her financial aid forms to NYU. Unfortunately for Wren, Albert is a clever little devil and escapes on Halloween night to have his own shenanigans.

So she is forced to look for him with the nerds and April, while also figuring out what she wants to do in her life. Albert befriends a convenience store clerk named Fuzzy (Thomas Middleditch), who can talk enough for the both of them while he plans revenge on the man who ruined his last relationship.

(I apologize for the shitty image) but I think this movie might make the one armed Spider-Man a “thing”.

Yes, strange as it may seem, this was not the worst movie I have ever seen. When I saw it in the theater, I was the only one there. The only other time that happened was with Madea’s Witness Protection and usually it is a bad omen. But it was a made for kids, Nickelodeon movie, so I understood the target audience.

Sure, parts of it made me fill with rage at how bad everything was going. Yet there were still scenes I found enjoyable/funny. The acting isn’t great at all, most of the friend characters are all stereotypes. They do feature some character growth, but in an obvious way. You know how all the relationships will work out well in advance, and offers nothing new. But yet, it is charming in a way. Sure, the Albert character started out as annoying, but he really was the main reason this film could be considered average. I enjoyed his shenanigans with Thomas Middleditch, and how Thomas Mann’s character grew some balls by the end.

There might be an issue of loose morals going on with the movie, after all, it is Nickelodeon and it involves sex! But hey, kids need to grow up sometime. I actually don’t know a single person who I could recommend this movie too, but it is fun seeing Jane Levy in a role that is the complete opposite of her character in Suburgatory. The problem is I think the boring parts outweighed the interesting ones, and even though it isn’t terrible, it still isn’t that good either.

What is a Heckler?

Someone who is a dick at a live event basically. A person who disrupts the show, calling out over the performer. Whether it be positive or negative, a heckler it be, yet generally it is negative.

People hate Hecklers, but man, some of the best comedy from stand up comedians come from attacking Hecklers.

But they don’t like it. That is what the movie Heckler is trying to say.

And 80 minutes of this guy.

Made by Jamie Kennedy, Heckler wants people to know that Hecklers suck and they are literally Hitlers. You will see ton of comedians bashing hecklers and giving nice reasons why.

But I lied when I said it was 80 minutes on the subject. I will still overestimate the time that topic got, and give it about 40. The last half? Well, it is more a general attack on mean people everywhere. By mean people everywhere, Jamie Kennedy of course is referring to critics/bloggers.

Oh shit! I am one of them!

Jamie Kennedy believes that Hecklers and Movie Critics are basically the same thing, maybe with the latter being worse. He actually goes around to people who reviewed his movie, Son of the Mask, badly. He does raise a valid point when he tries to figure out from them why they felt the need to attack his actual person in the review, which no one has a good answer for. But at that point it is uncomfortable.

I am not saying I disagree with what is said. Movie reviews should stick to the movie. It is fine to actually critique things, hell even make fun of things for a laugh. But you know, don’t then say the person is a giant dildo. Or whatever.

But Jamie Kennedy does it in the most dildo way possible, I don’t even care. It’s not the viewer’s fault that so many people disliked Son of the Mask. It’s just the normal reaction to a pisspoor movie.

It turns out that Silent Hill and Silent Hill: Revelation are actually connected movies! Shocking I know. But for some reason I just figured they’d be two different stories both set in the same town, based on different games in the series. After all, it has only been a six year difference between the movies.

But nope, Sean Bean plays the same character in both movies, so I had to rush watch the first one to make sure I understood all the complicated plot developments this movie would surely have.

Well, at least this also has snow. Wait no. Ash. Yep, that’s ash.

Well don’t worry, seeing the first film is not necessary. The dad (Bean) and daughter Heather/Shannon (Adelaide Clemens) are moving all across America because the cult in Silent Hill, West Virginia is after her. She doesn’t remember any of the events from the first film, when she was in the town with her mother (Radha Mitchell), and didn’t know that her mom was still trapped inside its city limits.

But when they move to a new town, with new identities, she continues to receive strange dreams that feel extremely real, telling her that she is never to return to Silent Hill.

So when her dad gets kidnapped to protect her location, she does what anyone would do in that situation, and returns to Silent Hill. Thankfully she has the help of Vincent (Kit Harrington) who also happened to be a new kid in school, and for whatever reason doesn’t find any of this weird.

The cult wants to kill her, because they believe she is the innocent part of a demon child Alyssa that is terrorizing their town…that they also created. They are hoping to kill the demon, in order to birth a new demon, who can uh…kill the world? I am not even sure. But Carrie-Anne Moss is in charge of it all, and Malcolm McDowell plays a blind crazy uncle.

This is also how I like my womenz.

I don’t go to 3D movies a lot, right now my count is at six, but I am trying to give them more chances. “Silent Hill: Revelation” is by far has the worst 3D I have ever seen, and I also watched Katy Perry: Part Of Me in 3D. Its 3D consisted entirely of things coming out at you and roughly zero of everything else. It was made purely for a scare factor, but even did poorly at that aspect.

I don’t think you need to see the first “Silent Hill” film to see this one, because they try to explain everything you need in the second movie. However, the plot made absolutely no sense to me, despite seeing both films. I can’t tell the point of the cult, nor could I fully grasp why the town went to hell in the first place.

Most would say that the movie isn’t about plot, but cool visual effects. Well, its visual effects are bad (and they should feel bad), so then the movie just might be about being scared! But even I didn’t find it scary, just predictable and weird. The first film most would agree was a bit dull, trying (and failing) to recreate the alone feelings felt from the game. I think it is obvious that for this film they tried to amp everything up, yet still it just didn’t feel quite right. A bit disappointing that this is the only horror movie to be released on Halloween week. If you are looking for some good scares, I’d recommend basically anything else but this.

Can’t stop, won’t stop. That is how I live my life. Every walk a strut. So why not a movie called Won’t Back Down? That shit appeals to me. Only time I will back down is when the ref tells me too cause I am too awesome in a fight. Alright that’s a lie. I wouldn’t back down then either.

Determination to finally get off the couch and you know, sit on a couch.

Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is not your ordinary mother. You know that, because she says so multiple times. Her daughter (Emily Alyn Lind) has dyslexia and now because they are so poor, she can not keep her in the private school even with aid and has to go public. Public schools give no fucks, because this is another random one that has a tenure policy. So they get that and well, do nothing else and barely try to teach. Leaving the daughter to be dyslexic and unable to read.

But she wants to change that. First by bugging everyone but no dice. But when she hears about a parent/teacher takeover for a school, that lets them get rid of unionization if half of the parents and teachers are for it, and develop new rules and principals and teaching methods, she gets all excited. But why would teachers give up their safety net? Well, because some of them care I guess. Nona Alberts (Viola Davis) feels bad about her son (and divorce with her husband, Lance Reddick) and just goes a long with it. Jamie even seduces a teacher who still cares to join their cause (Oscar Isaac) even though he likes unions and doesn’t like being put in that spot.

So despite the fact that they even say most schools that go through this begin to fail again after six months, will they somehow pull off the whole process and fix everything in two whole months?

Spoilers.

But wait. Does the movie end after they successfully win their resolution? Yes. But it only shows the school a few months after summer break and its fine. Not years later. Most start to fail after six months. They didn’t even show past that threshold!

But they showed a whole lot more. Two hours of movie at that. First off, time was confusing. I was sure they were setting it in early 2000s, but had all these Penguin/Steeler references after 2008. It said inspired by true events, which is another bullshit term. Schools have gotten better through this is all. It is super one sided and makes fixing a school seem easy as crap.

But more importantly, it is based on a fucking incorrect Gandhi quote. He never said be the change you want to see in the world. Stop it people. Stop giving that to Gandhi. It is a lie! Every time a movie uses it, kittens die. That is all I am saying.

I wish I just watched Lean on Me again, would have been better use of my night!

I readily admit that I am a coward, but I also claim that I am willing to watch anything. This often leads me to situations where I scare myself for the entertainment of others. Like Paranormal Activity 4! I never really wanted to see these movies, but last Monday I marathoned the first 3 just to catch up, and strangely enough did not find them scary. I attribute that fact to my multitasking nature, and that I may have missed a lot more of the subtle scares in the build up.

In order to get the full experience, I realized I needed to see the movie with other people. A nice midnight release. Once I got there, I also picked my seat so that I would have groups of women on all sides. I figured hey, if women scream more at movies, I might scream too! If I increase my own fear, I can probably talk about the movie a bit better.

Paranormal Activity 4 takes place about five years after the events of PA1/PA2. Katie had stolen her sister’s kid, Hunter, killing everyone in her path, and disappeared never to be seen again! But now, we are in Nevada, with a completely new family.

Alex (Kathryn Newton) is your typical teenage girl, but lives kind of in a big wealthy house. Mac notebooks everywhere! She actually has married parents (Stephen Dunham, Alexondra Lee), but they fight a lot and might get divorced. You know, if they survive. She also has a younger brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp) who is pretty normal.

You know who isn’t normal? That kid across the street, “Robbie” (Brady Allen), who lives pretty much alone because his mom Katie (Katie Featherston) is away a lot. But when she gets injured in an accident, the family agrees to watch over “Robbie” for a few days while she is in the hospital. Just like every other movie in the series, weird stuff starts to happen in their house as soon as “Robbie” is staying over. Alex’s good friend Ben (Matt Shively) notices that “Robbie” is being weird while they Skype, so they agree to set up mac book pros around the house to record their activity and make sure he is on the up and up.

Definitely not a ploy by Ben to have access to Alex any time of the day. Perverted teenagers are not a thing.

Hopefully “Robbie” doesn’t befriend Wyatt too much. It would be weird if there was two scary young boys running around.

Nonchalant face of terror + night vision = pants being shat.

Paranormal Activity 4 turned out to be a pretty different beast than the previous three films. The technology used is ramped up, the replace a lot of the subtle scares with more noise based rumbles and shadowy figures, and the main character is a teenage girl instead of the adults. Some would say that replacing a lot of the subtle scares is almost a dumbing down of the film series, no longer rewarding the observant viewer, and yeah, I would agree with it.

But I am more upset that the main character, who has all this physical proof on her computer, has a great inability to show her parents and get some sort of solution in the works. Most notably would be the “car/garage” scene. It is almost as if they decided after setting up all the computers to never actually check them again for evidence, which is bonkers.

I also have a problem with this movie in that it doesn’t really answer any questions into the mythos of this world. The plot involving Wyatt and Robbie doesn’t actually make any sense, nor do the actions of Katie. Instead, we are left with another tragic ending, but practically no plot development, which to me only feels like a waste of time.

Boo! Okay, that never scares anyone anymore. No, we need more subtle weirder and realistic stuff to scare us. Which explains the Paranormal Activity franchise. Heck, the production companies love it because they are relatively cheap to make and can rake in the cash.

In case you didn’t see the first two films, here is some catch up! Obviously this contains spoilers for 1 and 2, but hell, 3 also.

In the first film, Katie has moved in with her boyfriend, after which she tells him that some evil presence has been following her around and messing with stuff. Well shit, kind of late there. Weird stuff happens, grows more and more, she becomes possessed and kills the boyfriend and goes missing.

In the second film, it takes place before the first! Ah sneaky. Instead of Katie, it is her sister Kristi, who is actually married with kids, including a new born boy. They recall that demons haunted them when they were kids, and that their family could have been involved with a cult that requires the first male born son. That son, Hunter, is the first in four or five generations. Awkward. Demon stuff happens, it escalates. Then the end of the film is after the events of the first, Katie comes, kills everyone, and steals a baby!

It’s Katie and Kristi! It’s Katie and Kristi! One is a demon, the other’s just dead!

So lets go to the third film now! Which takes place before both of the other ones, hah! Take that, continuity!

No, this movie takes place like, 18 years prior or so. When Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) and Katie (Chloe Csengery) were kids! Where recording stuff happened on big VHS recorders, with tape and wasn’t all snazzy and digital. They live with their mom, Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Chris Smith), because not many people get married in these movies.

Weird shit happens, so he sets up some cameras around the house to see if he can record any more. If only he was their actual dad, then we could say we know it was some genetic issue for each family to do this later as well. But I guess it was the guys idea each time, so hmm.

Shit escalates. Some invisible demon bugs the kids, until it convinces them to do what it wants, mainly Kristi. They convince the family to go to the grandmothers house for a bit, thanks to all that weird ass shit. Then it becomes a fuck with Dennis movie, which it might have been all along. They hear weird noises at the grandmothers house, Julie goes to investigate, does not return. Dennis finds weird images in the girls room, but can’t find the girls. He sees shapes, but no one there. He notices the back door open, goes to investigate, heads to the back shed, turns it on, BOOOM, a bunch of old ladies in black just standing there all creepily.

Julie is found dead, and used as a projectile against Dennis. He finds Kristi and tries to hide with her. Doesn’t work. Finds Katie, she goes all demon on him and he falls down. Just to make sure, the grandmother pops up and breaks his body completely. Yay happy endings! So I guess uhh, after this, the girls go to live with grandmother all creepily until they move out?

Bloody mary is a fun game. And by game, I mean time waster. And by fun, I mean stupid.

You’d think they’d remember these type of things happening, since they even say they were haunted in the previous film. But their mom and her boyfriend violently killed? Come on.

Out of the first three, I think this is the worst. I think it has more subtle stuff going on, but having it go back to their childhood to help explain the first two movies? I didn’t think it really worked. Sure, a lot of weird stuff happened. But for the girls to just completely forget about it until almost 20 years later when it happened again? That just feels like a plot hole. A giant plot hole kick in the nuts.

The only plot that matters from this movie, if you were going to continue the series, is that you got to see they had a creepy grandmother, who probably knew about the demon cult curse thing mentioned in the second movie. Definitely not necessary (yet) to understand any more of the series.

Normally I try to maintain a neutral bias before I see every movie, as you know. But sometimes I get so pumped up on an idea and on how awesome a movie can be, if the movie doesn’t deliver, then I might resent the movie.

And well, that might have happened for Premium Rush. I was stoked for this movie. Cool bike racing against the time, maybe terrorists, who knows?! Joseph Gordon-Levitt generally delivers. This will be a great movie if it is real time, like 24 and Phone Booth. The previews almost make it seem that way, I mean jeez, they even say he only has 90 minutes to get the task done. That’s like a movie length!

Oh no JGL! Watch out! That Taxi is coming right for you!

Well this movie is not set in real time. Insert instant disappointment. They do show the clock an awful lot. But also flip back and forth to before the movie started to set up some plot. Eh, flashbacks, how lazy.

Wilee (JGL. Yes like the Coyote. Might be an reference or something) is a bike courier in the big NYC. He actually finished law school, but doesn’t want to take the bar, or else he might be working in an office with all of those squares. How scary!

Know what isn’t scary? Riding an old bike at high speeds, no gears or breaks, around NYC. Always moving, always being an asshole. That’s the life!

He decides to take a big ticket item to pay some bills, a long delivery from his old school by 7pm, and hey, it is even his friend Nima (Jaime Chung) who hooks him up! But he immediately runs into problems when some random suit (Michael Shannon) stops him on his bike, demanding the envelope, and willing to give chase. Hot damn, crazy people!

While this is going on, he is also vying for the attention of his ex(?) Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) who actually wants to stop riding bikes, dealing with an asshole work mate Manny (Wole Parks), and trying to convince his manager Raj (Aasif Mandvi) that something bad is happening.

So step 2 was you putting your hands upon my hip? Then you dip, I dip, we dip?

Gah. Really though. This movie might have been killer if it was real time. I can’t get over that fact. Sure its harder to make, but come on. Come. On.

I did see that JGL actually got injured in the shoot. Real bike riding can do that to you with all those cars around. At least there was passion.

Personally I found the character to be extremely unlikeable. When I called him an asshole? That wasn’t just me bullshitting. He actually is one. He will go back and forth in front of cars, causing them to stop and swerve, almost hit lots of people, no care in the world. That’s just a dick move, man.

After he starts getting chased, he causes a small accident which causes a bike cop to chase him. Despite the fact that his chaser is gone and is now a cop, he still doesn’t stop. Not even when it is just easy enough to stop, and get help from the mad man.

The rest of the plot? I guess it is plausible. But a lot of the coincidences to make it worked bugged me, there were far too many. Not to mention they also gave JGL some sort of spider sense to be able to pick the right path that didn’t come up in injury (although I will admit it was funny to see the “wrong” path choices. Some crazy crashes).

Basically, the TL;DR version of this review is my friends intuitions were correct.

Turning popular board games into movies is not a new thing, it is just not too common. Hopefully the next one is some disaster film by Michael Bay, involving Hungry Hungry Hippos. But really, why not board game movies? I can only think of one of the top of my head, Clue, and Clue is amazing. So why not Battleship? Sure, it is basically two naval units firing randomly into the abyss to hit the other, because fuck your radar.

Can they turn that into a full fledged naval war movie? Or will they just cop out and throw in some Aliens?

Yep. Fucking Aliens. Never mind the Michael Bay thing. He’d just make the Hippos become aliens as well.

Back in the mid 2000s, NASA has discovered a “Plant-G” with similar situations for life compared to earth. It is just super far away. So they send a giant ass beacon to that planet, hoping for a response. About six years later in 2012, they get one. But first! Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a local slacker in Hawaii, and his brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård) is a Commander in the Navy. He does not approve. Especially when he flirts with the Admiral’s daughter, Sam (Brooklyn Decker).

He does what anyone would do in this situation. He joins the Navy from the pressure, and six years later finds himself as a Lieutenant! Yeah. Even better, he has been dating Sam, and now wants to marry her. Just has to ask the Admiral (Liam Neeson) for his blessing first. This has a lot of nothing to do with Battleships, so lets move on. Woo, navy games with other countries involved in Hawaii! Too bad the Aliens show up and confuse everyone. Four ships, to be exact, land into the ocean, with a fifth one breaking apart and crash landing into Hong Kong. Whoops.

When the ships go close to investigate, a force shield is brought down trapping only three ships in its grasps! One lead by Stone, one with Alex on it, and the other lead by Captain Yugi Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) of Japan. Due to certain circumstances (death), Alex also finds him the new Captain of the ship, and he has to figure out how to bring down the Alien threat, while his girlfriend, a man without legs, and a scientist try and stop the aliens from signaling home. Also, Rihanna is here, doing some stuff.

Doin’ some stuff on some computers, gettin’ her pew pew pew on.

So here is something cool. You are probably wondering how randomly firing into the ocean makes this movie eh? Well, turns out the Aliens turn off their Radar, so they kind of have to blind fire. Because it is by Hawaii, there are tsunami warning buoys throughout the ocean. They access that information, to try and determine where the Aliens are currently swimming by the rise in elevation of the tide at that point. Then they fire at the buoys to hit them. Thankfully they have short quick names like, B7, allowing the firing to become quicker and more easier.

Cheesy? Yes. But I like that they incorporated the game in some how.

But that is all I liked. This did basically feel and look like Transformers, if all the Transformers were giant machines that became sea dragons. Dialogue and plot was crap. Epic sea battles didn’t really happen. Mostly ships got destroyed, and one was able to survive and fight back. Slowly. The scenes on the island trying to stop the aliens on foot? Eh, wasn’t a fan of those either.

Basically, it was another mainstream action movie that I found boring. Can’t believe anyone would be surprised at this point!

Turns out The Babymakers is kind of a Broken Lizard movie. Why kind of? Because some of them are involved, and directed by that one guy. But not the whole crew. So not an official one.

Sad. Because apparently they need the whole group for it to be especially entertaining. 2/5 of anything is bound to be a disappointment!

There is a dick joke there.

Audrey (Olivia Munn) and Tommy (Paul Schneider) have hit their three year anniversary for marriage! Which you all know is the anal anniversary. Wait no? Oh. They want to have a kid finally? Well that’s good.

Nine months later, they are still trying. Sucks to suck. Turns out Tommy boy is shooting blanks now. He cries fowl. It can’t be his junk! Why not? Because secretly before their marriage, for twenty weeks straight he donated his sperm to pay for the ring. So maybe he has a bunch of kids running around now. Twenty even? Well, his friends (Nat Faxon, Kevin Heffernan) agree he should go see if they have any left! Yeah! One vial! But uhh, they already sold it.

But it won’t be used for another work. So why not steal it back? Anything for the love of his life. So they get a friend of a friend, who was in the India mafia, Ron Jon (Jay Chandrasekhar), and work on robbing a weird kind of bank.

The India mafia is known for its brutality and violent protests.

I felt like I barely described the movie, but unfortunately that is all that happens. Heck, the synopsis brief is a guy has to steal his sperm back from a sperm bank, to impregnate his wife as he has now gone sterile. Unfortunately it takes about 4/5 of the movie before they actually go and do it. It isn’t even like there is tons of planning before hand either. It is just that the movie went everywhere else first, the scenic route, to what the movie is about.

Speaking of dick jokes, there wasn’t as much as I would have expected. Basically the only real reason to see this movie is to see Olivia Munn in a lot of sex scenes, non nakedly, if you wanted to avoid Magic Mike for whatever reason. Only a few amusing scenes, and a plot that takes a ridiculous amount of time to get going.

Four years ago, when I first saw Taken, it was basically a mind blowing experience. Liam Neeson, being old, but kicking ass. All the ass. So much ass. Like, an absurd amount of dead bodies actually. Holy crap, he took out an entire mafia in France basically. He killed people with his cold heart alone, but just wanted to save his daughter and further awkwardanize their relationship.

But then I heard there would be a sequel, a Taken 2. Okay, fine, I liked the first one. As long as it just didn’t involve his daughter being dumb again, then it might work. Who doesn’t want to see more of Liam Neeson running around destroying everyone?

Well if anything, looks like his daughter gets to at least drive a car this time!

Remember all those people he killed? Well turns out, the fathers and brothers and other family members of them are kind of pissed off. Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija) is the father of the man who Bryan (Neeson) tortured with electricity and killed in the first film. After a large burial in their small Albanian village, they declare vengeance on the man who killed their family members. Just have to find him first.

Speaking of Bryan, well, he is still doing odd jobs and trying to get in with his old family. Turns out his wife (Famke Janssen) is no longer with her second husband. Score! Their daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is probably 17 now, because she has failed her drivers test twice now. Parallel parking destroys her. Oh and she has a boyfriend.

But sad things happen! Their fancy fall vacation trip to China was canceled, because it was with the ex! Thankfully, Bryan has a job in Istanbul and invites them along to save their vacation! Woo, Istanbul! Land of a thousand lakes. So of course the Albanian’s show up and want to capture him and his whole family, return them to Albania, and kill him on their soil. The rest of the movie involves Bryan trying to protect both his wife and daughter, who are separated, while apparently taking out the last half of the men in that small Albanian village.

Remember. Like 17 or something in this film. Not 29 like the actress.

So how was Neeson as a bad ass now versus four years ago? Well, when I watch Taken, I kind of picture him like Batman. A Batman that kills. He has to use clues and whatever he can to get him to the next part of his journey, closer and closer to finding his daughter before she is unreachable and a sex slave. This time? Well, the bad guys come to him. So the whole thing takes place in Istanbul, which is a huge city yes, but a lot less expansive than the first film. Solving clues? Not really in this film. There is only two moments where he really uses his brain, the first time was awesome, the second time was just off of his memory.

So that is a decline from the first film. What about the action? I’d say that is mostly on par with the first one. Lot of hand to hand fighting, quick shot. Hey even a chase scene too, but this time with Maggie Grace driving the car. The mom character gets to be the mostly helpless captive this time, so there is that difference.

The problem with this movie is that it really doesn’t offer anything new. I went in kind of excited, but I felt like I was given a lot less on my plate compared to my first helping. Similar situations, yet a lot less. The first film did have quite a few “well that is convenient” moments, sure, but this one kind of amplifies that. They actually show zero transition from successfully saving his daughter with the US Embassy but being surrounded by people in guns, to being back on the streets for his wife. Tons of story line that seemed to be ignored, I guess to keep it around 90 minutes.

Taken 2 shouldn’t exist, but it should be followed up with a film called Taken It Easy, where Neeson finally gets to rejoin his family. Without awkwardness.