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88The beginning is a little slow, but after Neeson starts his hunt and does his best wrath-of-God impression, it doesn’t skip a beat.
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Taken moves so fast and with such single-minded, vindictive energy, there's no time for moral ambivalence.
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There is no mythology, no irony, no real soul--just a Charles Bronson simplicity about the whole affair.
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75Taken is nonsense, but it's terrifically entertaining nonsense.
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75There's a xenophobic element to Taken's premise, to be sure - the idea that travel, even to Western Europe, isn't safe for Americans, and that foreigners (Albanians, Arabs) are by nature shifty and sinister.
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75I won't tell you Taken is great, but it's great fun.
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70The delirious and sometimes nasty little pleasures that Taken offers don't hinge as much on surprise as they do on the action (which is crisp and fast, with a minimum of computer enhancement) and on the story's unabashedly sentimental underpinnings.
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70Taken--in the hands of director Pierre Morel (District B13), with Neeson in nearly every shot--works like gangbusters. The Frenchies have made the filet mignon of meathead vigilante movies.
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A satisfying thriller as grimly professional as its efficient hero.
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67If you find the film's xenophobic undercurrents distasteful, take solace in this: Taken was co-written and directed by the Frenchmen responsible for "District B13," so at least the xenophobia is imported.
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Accomplished if misguided thriller.
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63Taken shows Mills as a one-man rescue squad, a master of every skill, a laser-eyed, sharpshooting, pursuit-driving, pocket-picking, impersonating, knife-fighting, torturing, karate-fighting killing machine who can cleverly turn over a petrol tank with one pass in his car and strategically ignite it with another.
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63Not one to overstay its welcome, this suspenseful tale is an economic exercise in delivering the goods for those who are interested in a two-fisted Liam Neeson vehicle to soak up, bask in, and then leave behind as soon as it's over.
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63Taken does have a few things going for it. At the top of that short list is Liam Neeson in the starring role.
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63If there are any "24" fans who have wondered what the TV series might be like if Liam Neeson replaced Kiefer Sutherland, Taken provides an opportunity to have that question answered.
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60In the post-Columbine age, far too many cops' partners have gone un-murdered. And too many unsuspecting daughters have freely traveled abroad, unmolested by foreign fiends. Leave it to the French to give Americans what we didn't realize we were missing.
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60A brisk and violent action programmer that can't help being unintentionally silly at times.
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60Neeson growls his way through the functional dialogue as an unstoppable killing machine in impressive, cold-eyed style.
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58Propulsively outandish thriller.
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Might do good business at home and abroad among audiences unconcerned with the finer points of characterization or psychological insight.
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50Neeson's tormented weariness lends an air of dignity to the film's pulpy, grubby nastiness, but as striking as he is in action-hero mode, the truth is that Taken doesn't need dignity.
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42Taken's subject matter is too serious for an escapist chop-socky movie, and the sleazy, exploitative tone undercuts the thrills.
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40Neeson's better than this. You can't watch him here without thinking, Geez, every fight-choreography session could have funded "Love, Actually." This bash-the-door-down action scene likely took as long to film as "Kinsey." That gunfight required more stunts than all of "Schindler's List."
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40The film promises so much more than it delivers that, by the end, I felt like registering a complaint with the Obama Administration's Consumer Protection squad.
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40You do wonder how this commanding actor (Neeson)--who carries so much more conviction than the plot--felt about delivering the line "I'll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to."
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38This film isn't an enjoyable martial-arts extravaganza like "District B-13" or the "Transporter" films.
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30Taken starts in low gear and almost immediately stalls out.
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30Cowriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (Gladiator) saddle Neeson with indigestible dialogue and preposterous situations.
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25Taken? You bet.
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Don't be taken in by Taken.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 144 out of 172
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Mixed: 13 out of 172
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Negative: 15 out of 172
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