Critics Not So Taken With Taken

Critics disagree over whether Bourne-style action flick Taken is a quality picture, but they concur on one thing: Its plot is “preposterous,” as Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times puts it. It’s “a completely unbelievable action picture” in which Liam Neeson’s “sharpshooting, pursuit-driving, pocket-picking, impersonating” character appears capable of any feat. That said, Ebert writes, “it's very well-made.”

Taken is “not the kind of action film to spend much time worrying about its pedestrian script or largely indifferent acting,” so thank goodness for Neeson, who “throws himself into this role,” writes Kenneth Turan in the LA Times. But Manohla Dargis of the New York Times can’t enjoy the “shamelessly lazy filmmaking,” “many dubious plot points,” and a lead with an “inexplicable Irish accent,” she writes.
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