By Lauren Cosca ’15

Many movies producers have made the mistake of trying to hold onto to popular movie series too long. Writer Luc Besson and director Oliver Megaton show this to be true with the production of “Taken 3” starring Liam Neeson. The first movie in this series was a huge hit with an exciting plot of a man named Bryan Mills who goes on a mission to find his kidnapped daughter. The second movie goes onto reverse the roles of him and his daughter with him being the one taken. In the second film, many viewers were left feeling like they knew what was going to happen in the end. The third movie continues the franchises downward spiral, with the same fighting and chasing scenes as in the previous movies.

The plot of “Taken 3” is Mills escaping police custody after being accused of the murder of his ex-wife, and his journey to find the real killer, no matter what it takes. No one actually gets taken in this movie, and it doesn’t really have a lot to do with the first two movies.

Now 62 years old, Neeson has lost his aura of a super tough guy.  Throughout the movie, he escapes police twice, once even while in the backseat of the cop car. He chases down killers, gets into fist fights, and beats down many people at the same time. Even by Hollywood standards, it is too improbable that this older man is still overpowering men half his age who are in top physical shape. 

In addition to Neesons’ impractical moves he pulls on people who are obviously more fit and armed with guns, a few important plot points are also things that would never ever happen in real life. The cops bust into his home and arrest him for the murder of his wife with no questions and begin being extremely hostile. Also, Neeson creates a multiple police car chase and crash, and leaves with no bruises or scrapes. It seems like he can get out of anything with no problems, which makes the whole plot almost impossible to really imagine ever happening.

“Taken 3” has proven to confirm the predictions of many: sometimes you don’t need to make a sequel (or two) to a good movie, and it might be best not to push the luck of the success of the first movie.