TAKEN 3

I have waited for this movie for some time now especially since I love the first two parts.

With the same cast ensemble comprising Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills, Maggie Grace as Kim Mills, Famke Janssen as Bryan's ex-wife Lenore St. John, Dougray Scott as Stuart St. John and a new member Forest Whitaker as Inspector Franck Dotlzer, the story progressed rather lazily in the first half an hour until Lenore got murdered. That was when the pace picked up, the plot thickened and the action began.

Liam Neeson didn't seem as intimidating in this movie than when he was in the first movie perhaps because of age, but his voice was still certainly commanding and sexy for his age. Thankfully, Maggie Grace wasn't acting like a teenager and freaking out easily anymore, which was really irritating in the earlier movies.

The rest of the movie was kind of predictable in that no matter how many enemies were up against him, the ex-operative with the help of a few friends in this movie eventually eliminated all of them, except for one. I think the movie has lost some of its lustre and the formulaic success was no longer enough to keep me riveted to the chair.

Will there be a part 4? I don't know and guess it would depend on the box office takings for this movie. 

Bryan Mills with daughter Kim

this will be the last we see of Famke as Lenore

Stuart St. John

Inspector Franck Dotlzer

Bryan dueling with one of the villains Oleg Malankov

NON-STOP

Liam Neeson is really something. At 60 something, he is really an unlikely hero who struck a chord in me since I first started seeing him play an action hero years ago in the movie "Taken". His voice was strong, commanding and forceful, which served him very well recently as the voice-over of the schizophrenic policeman in "The Lego Movie".

I think this movie came out at a bad time when the MH370 plane from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing few weeks ago. This movie is about terrorism but Liam Neeson's character Bill Marks the air marshal was framed to be the scapegoat. Much as he wanted to save the flight and its passengers from going down, he was set up to take the blame and news of him taking over the plane was broadcasted all over the international news. Fortunately for his wit, he was able to help the co-pilot secure a safe landing with no casualties, other than the terrorists and a few unfortunate victims. I was gripping the edge of my seat throughout the movie.

Sadly, in real life, no one truly knows what happened to the missing plane yet.

Julianne Moore as one of the passengers who helped Bill

TAKEN 2

At 56, Liam Neeson sealed his position as an action hero since the 2008 predecessor movie "Taken" which took the box office by surprise. The Irish actor has made many movies since the 80s and filmed quite a number of movies in recent times such as "Clash of the Titans", "Wrath of the Titans", "The Grey", "Batteship". Unlike his younger contemporaries who became action heroes at a younger age, this seasoned and brilliant actor is convincing as a tough secret agent despite his age.

This time round, the movie was set predominantly in Istanbul, which frankly I didn't like. As the CIA Operative Bryan Mills who went to Istanbul on a mission, the fiercely protective husband and father had to single-handedly risked life and limb to rescue his ex-wife Lenore (played by Famke Janssen of "Ex-Men" fame as the character Pheonix) and daughter Kim (played by Maggie Grace) from a legion of his enemies, who were relatives of the men he killed in "Taken", away from his home ground. His job trained him to be a relentless and focused killer with an obsessive compulsive disorder and super-memory who, despite being blindfolded earlier, managed to retrace his steps to the kidnapper's secret hiding place based on his specific set of skills alone.

Seriously, he is not someone to trifle with or whom you want to make enemies of. Especially not after the famous line uttered by him in the first movie to the kidnapper Marko whom took Kim:

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

With the success of "Taken 2", now there are talks of a third movie. If this is true, I am definitely looking forward to it since I am very impressed by his commanding voice and versatility in acting.