REVIEW: Taken

STARRING: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 01/30/09 DATE SCREENED: 01/26/09 The Verdict GREAT - See it opening weekend

“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”. I was sold on Taken the moment those words were uttered in the trailer. The warning, delivered brilliantly by Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills, goes unheeded by the Albanian sex traffickers who have kidnapped Bryan’s daughter while on a trip to Paris. They simply wish him "Good Luck". Big mistake...

What the bad guys don’t know is that Bryan is some kind of government operative that “prevents bad things from happening”. Early in the film we see that he is recently retired and desperately trying to rebuild a relationship with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), whose mother Lenore (Famke Janssen) has married a very rich businessman who is footing the bill for Kim to follow the band U2 on their European tour. Nervous about his teenaged daughter traveling through Europe with another teenaged friend, Bryan gives her a special phone with orders to call every day. Luckily, she calls him just as the bad guys arrive to kidnap the two teens, leading to the classic lines in the trailer and leaving him with small clues as to who the kidnappers are. Bryan is on the first plane to Paris, and it seems that “preventing bad things from happening” must involve a lot of killing. Simply put, the Albanians have kidnapped the wrong girl, and now they have to pay for it. Bryan only has a few days to find his daughter, and he quickly goes about dispatching the bad guys as he works his way through the underworld of sex trafficking. Leaving a trail of dead bodies in the red light districts of Paris, nothing is going to stop Bryan from rescuing his daughter.

Any fan of “24” will recognize this story as a variation on the first season of that series. I personally think “24” was the best drama in TV history through season 5, and it was all set in motion by watching Jack Bauer leave a trail of bodies on his way to saving his kidnapped wife and daughter. Taken is much more violent than any TV show, and Neeson puts all of his movie fight training to good use in some of the best, kick-ass, non-CGI, action scenes I’ve seen out of a non-Asian film in years (the film is from France). The film is actually a throwback to the great Arnold Schwarzenegger/Sylvester Stallone action movies of the ‘80s. To my surprise, Liam Neeson has that same action star charisma. Even though you know what is going to happen, Taken manages to push all the right buttons and get you rooting for Bryan even when he has to torture someone to get closer to his daughter’s location. Jason Statham is constantly being pushed down our throats as a big action star, while it turns out that Neesan is a better action hero. Taken is better than any movie Statham has done. If you like action films, this is a great one worth seeing opening weekend.

REVIEW: New In Town

STARRING: Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr. View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 01/30/09 DATE SCREENED: 01/22/09 The Verdict NOT GOOD - Wait for cable

In full make-up, skirt, heels, and a light form fitting jacket, Miami businesswoman Lucy Hill arrives in a small Minnesota town to begin the restructuring of a blue color manufacturing plant. Mumbling something along the lines of “how cold can it be” she is in for a rude awakening as she steps outside of the airport to feel the chill of a Minnesota winter. She screams and runs inside, in one of the few funny scenes in New In Town. This romantic comedy starring Renée Zellweger as Lucy, doesn’t deliver much comedy or romance.

New In Town follows the romantic comedy blueprint set forth since the beginning of movies. On her first night in Minnesota, Lucy meets a guy named Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick Jr.), who she hates. He also turns out to be the union rep at the manufacturing plant. Lucy is also immediately at odds with her new secretary Blanche and plant foreman Stu (J.K. Simmons). Lucy plans to downsize the workforce and she knows right where to start. But funny things start to happen on the way to those layoffs. When a car accident leaves her stranded in a snowstorm, Lucy is rescued by Ted. And guest what? They start to like each other. Lucy even helps Ted’s daughter get ready for a date. As their romance blossoms, Lucy also begins to forge a friendship with Blanche. When the corporate headquarters orders Lucy to close the plant, she is determined to make sure it doesn’t happen. She even re-hires Stu, who she had already fired. When Blanches discovers Lucy’s old list of layoffs on a sheet of paper, she becomes persona non grata around the city. But Lucy will not be deterred. She is determined to not only keep the plant open, but get her man back as well. I wasn’t exactly on the edge of my seat waiting to see how things would turn out in the end.

It’s bad enough when a film centers on a romance between two people with nothing in common and no chemistry whatsoever. But then on top of that, New In Town wants us to buy into a corporate executive putting her career on the line to save a manufacturing plant simply because she likes a couple of the people who work there. It’s all completely ridiculous. Nothing happens that you don't see coming. On a positive note, J.K. Simmons breathes life into every scene he’s in, making foreman Stu the only likeable character in the movie. His gruff, but funny, way of insulting everyone did make me smile. The film is clearly banking on the star power of Renee Zellweger for its success. She just seemed to be going through the motions. There are surely better movies to be made showcasing her talent.

I’m not the target audience for New In Town. I did hear some women commenting that the movie was cute on the way out of the screening. I have my doubts as to whether they would say that if they actually had to pay for the movie. This is not a good film. Even if you like romantic comedies, you can wait for this one to come on cable.

REVIEW: Inkheart

STARRING: Brendan Fraser, Eliza Bennett View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 01/23/09 DATE SCREENED: 01/17/09 The Verdict NOT GOOD - Wait for cable

Brendan Fraser, fresh off killing The Mummy film series, returns to lighter family fare in Inkheart. Based on a children’s novel of the same name, the film adaptation was actually written with him in mind. He is friends with the book’s author, Cornelia Funke, and she wouldn’t allow the film to be made without him. Originally filmed in 2006/2007, Inkheart was initially scheduled for a Christmas 2007 release. When a movie sits on the shelf for over a year, that’s usually not a good sign.

Fraser stars as Mo Folchart, a mythical ‘Silvertongue’. A ‘Silvertongue’ is a person who can pull characters out of a book by reading it aloud. The catch is that every time a character comes out of a book, someone is snatched into the book as a replacement. While reading the book Inkheart aloud to his daughter Meggie, the villain Capricorn is pulled out of the book while his wife Resa is pulled in. As the years go on, Mo and Meggie travel the world looking for another copy of Inkheart, with the hopes that he can somehow read Resa out of the book. Meanwhile Capricorn has found another Silvertongue, and is creating an army of characters and creatures pulled form various books (mostly Inkheart). Dustfinger, another character that Mo had accidentally read out of Inkheart, finds Mo just when he has found another copy of Inkheart. Dustfinger attemptsr to convince Mo to read him back into the book. When Mo refuses, Dustfinger immediately helps Capricorn capture Mo, along with his daughter and aunt (Helen Mirren). With the help of a boy named Farid, who was read out of Arabian Knights, they must somehow escape to find another copy of Inkheart and read these villains back into the book to save Resa.

I do find the premise of Inkheart interesting, and it’s fun to see characters from books you know read into the “real world”. Dorothy’s dog Toto and the flying monkeys are read out of the Wizard of Oz. In general, I’m a fan of the Fantasy film genre. The problem is that this movie is just plain boring. The story moves from point 'A' to 'B' in a completely predictable way. Fraser gives you nothing as Mo, and Helen Mirren makes a lame attempt at being the comic relief. The final climax of the film, featuring the ominous creature The Shadow, is the only exciting part of the movie. But I was fighting with my eyelids waiting to get to that point. The movie should have somehow focused more on the daughter Meggie than her father. Kids always play the main role in a good fantasy film. Recent fantasy films that I have enjoyed, like Chronicles of Narnia or Spiderwick Chronicles, aren’t about the kids parents. Another key to a good fantasy film is the special effects. Inkheart seems to have spent their entire special effects budget creating The Shadow. The rest of the effects are completely mediocre or non existent. There is a minotaur in the movie that you barely get to see because it’s obviously just a big guy in a suit. This movie sat on the shelf for so long because it’s not any good. Not worth more than a Saturday afternoon family viewing when it comes on cable.