Taken 3 (2015)

Title: Taken 3
Release Date: 9 January 2015
Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2446042/
My Rating: (2/10) ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Well, I know one thing I wasn't taken with: this movie. Ba dum bum. 

Now honestly, I do not know what I was expecting. Good writing? Probably not. Decent writing that could pass for dialogue? Again probably not. Was I expecting laughable acting from a man I still respect, even though I recognize he has somehow become a caricature of himself.  Yes, yes I was. So in that regard I guess I got what I was expecting.

Chest voice on. Double squint engaged. Let the drama begin.

For a man who gets things taken from him so regularly, he sure has a tendency to leave himself vulnerable. But how else could this predictable set of circumstances unfold, complete with an ending you'd need to be asleep not to see coming. I suppose if I could survive gas explosions, car crashes, 100 foot drops et al, I wouldn't be too concerned either.

Haywire (2012)

Title: Haywire
Release Date: 20 January 2012
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Antonia Banderas, Michael Fassbender
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1506999/
My Rating: (5/10) ★★★★★✩✩✩✩✩

Maybe I wanted to hate it the moment I found out they digitally altered Gina Carano's voice to be lower because they wanted the actress to have more depth. Or maybe I wanted to hate it because it was the biggest waste of an all-star male cast since The Departed (if Michael Douglas had more than two lines I didn't hear them). But if you can overlook the fact that the lead character sounds like she's speaking in a vacuum the whole time (which does NOTHING for immersion), or the fact that Ewan McGregor bears a striking resemblance to Kiefer Sutherland, then you'll be pretty entertained with a few of the ass-kicking sequences...even though the film was a poor man's SALT in terms of production value. I do regard it as also a rich man's SALT in the fact that I didn't have to sit through two hours of Angelina Jolie. And you know this script went to her first. Maybe then I would have paid more attention to Michael Douglas.

Man On A Ledge (2012)

Title: Man on a Ledge
Release Date: 27 January 2012
Directed by: Asger Leth
Starring: Sam Worthington, Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568338/
My Rating: (6/10) ★★★★★★✩✩✩✩

My legs felt stiff every time the camera exploited the fact that Sam Worthington was on a ledge. Which, as it is the central device of the film, was quite often. But we're not here to discuss my fear of heights or my fear of ever seeing Elizabeth Banks in a lead role ever again (love you on 30 Rock girl). Since it is, on the surface, a movie about a man trying to prove his innocence I find it to be a gaping, overlooked plot hole that he had to go about proving that innocence in many illegal ways. But whatever, it's a jewelry heist film. But it's also a quirky buddy comedy in which the Latin girlfriend is actually referred to as a Chihuahua at one point and says spanish curse words a lot (because, hey that's what Latinas do when they're emotional). But don't you dare take her hot pink bra and panties away from her in the middle of a jewel bust or shit is gonna go down.

Jamie Bell is cute though.