TAKEN 3

2.5 stars (out of 5)

Liam Neeson’s role as formidable and feared ex-government operative Bryan Mills in Pierre Morel’s first Taken back in 2008 transformed him into an improbable yet appealing getting-on action star, but while un-Taken pics like Non-Stop and A Walk Among The Tombstones have been tough fun, no one was happy with Taken 2 in 2012, a mess in which nearly all the good guys get, um, taken. Nevertheless, aptly-named director Olivier Mégaton returns for this second sequel which features one serious cheat as, strictly speaking, no one here actually gets, ahem, taken.

Big Bry is still divorced from Lenore (Famke Janssen), who seems to be having problems with her second husband Stuart (Dougray Scott), while Bryan and Lenore’s daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is now a uni student with personal problems that make her get all weepy. Bryan’s told to stay away from his ex-wife and then, of course, Lenore winds up dead in his apartment and he’s immediately forced to bash some cops, leap out a window, sprint through several suburbs, dodge lots of bullets, you know the drill. Well and truly framed, Bryan goes off the grid as he evades just about the entire LAPD, while Detective Franck Dotzler (Forest Whitaker) doesn’t know whether to try and catch him or applaud. Endless car chases, shoot-‘em-ups, goofy plot twists and close-ups of Liam’s humourless gob later and our hero’s discovered that all this has something to do with a Russian (yawn) baddie who looks bizarrely like the homicidal twin brother of Jim Carrey in the Dumb And Dumber films.

Neeson brings some crusty gravitas to these dopey proceedings, but this is still a cinematic series that’s on the way out, just like Li… oops, sorry! And will there be another sequel and, if so, what will it be called? Taken 4 (A Ride) or Taken 4 (A Fool)?