Tries to be a big smart action movie even though it's utterly ludicrous.
Comment
09/26/08
Rate this Movie 
Taken (2009)
48 %
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work
Reviews Counted: 27
Fresh: 13
Rotten:14
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating]
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release: 26-09-2008
Synopsis: DISTRICT B13 helmer Pierre Morel directs this action-driven thriller. Liam Neeson (KINSEY) stars as a father who takes justice into his own hands when his daughter (Maggie Grace, THE FOG) is kidnapped. TAKEN also stars Famke Janssen.... [More]
Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser
Director: Pierre Morel
Reviews for Taken
Superbly directed, with a terrific performance from Liam Neeson, this bone-crunching, arse-kicking action thriller is one of the guiltiest pleasures of the year.
09/26/08
Liam Neeson, an actor who is incapable of portraying villainy, kills about 50 people in Pierre Morel’s movie.
09/26/08
The only puzzle of this toxically stupid Europhobe thriller is that its director (Pierre Morel) and producer (Luc Besson) are both French.
09/26/08
There’s nothing original here, but Neeson is a class above your normal action hero and writer/producer Luc Besson can always be relied upon to provide an unrelenting pace.
09/26/08
A nasty, grubby, pointless little thriller that hardly warrants a single star.
09/26/08
Seeing a personification of America exterminate pesky foreigners as if they're so many cockroaches does have entertainment value, despite its worrying overtones. It's just weird that it's been made, with no apparent irony, by a couple of Frenchmen.
09/26/08
Tough in places but compelling, this is the best action movie since the Bourne Supremacy.
09/26/08
Wham, bam, thank you Liam! Neeson is a man on fire: an unstoppable army of one scrapping and shooting his way around the City of Love. Both reprehensible and enjoyable in roughly equal measure.
09/26/08
With dialogue as convincing as power-sharing talks in Zimbabwe, characters so two-dimensional they’d be drummed out of a comic strip, and a hero who makes Jack Bauer look like a dithering idiot, Taken is hands down the unintentional comedy of the year.
09/26/08
This queasy, violent revenge fantasy becomes more preposterous as the body count rises. Taken is notable mainly for its racist stereotyping of Arabs and eastern Europeans.
09/26/08
Top Critic
Top Critic If Neeson wasn’t in such a dreadful hurry we might even enjoy the mindless cruelty.
09/26/08
Top Critic A woeful script that wastes a wonderful leading man, this is a film that doesn't care about anything. At the end of 93 minutes, neither will you.
09/26/08
Top Critic Director Pierre Morel’s directing style is ruthlessly efficient, but leaves no time to ponder the plot holes or the borderline racist portrayal of vicious Albanian gangsters and sleazy Arab businessmen.
09/26/08
Top Critic If you took Commando and replaced all its humour (intentional or otherwise) with snarling hatred, you’d end up with Taken - a risible male-re-empowerment fantasy.
09/26/08
Top Critic There's a proper debate to be had about the validation of torture in so many films. 'We used to outsource torture,' ex-CIA spy Bryan (Liam Neeson) says, 'but it was unreliable.'
09/25/08
Só não representa um desperdício maior de tempo porque dura breves 88 minutos (sem os créditos). O trailer merecia um filme melhor.
10/03/08
Just calling this formulaic doesn't cover it. The script should be credited to the computer software template that originated it.
09/28/08
Latest News for Taken
August 03, 2008:
Free Melbourne screening for Rotten Tomatoes readers
If you are a Rotten Tomatoes reader in Melbourne, RSVP for a double pass for a special Rotten Tomatoes and IGN.com screening of Taken. More...
Related Forums for Taken
Taken by the violence
by: oneota 5/24
by: oneota 5/24
More Movies
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| — | High School Musical 3:… | 22/10 |
| — | In Prison My Whole Life | 23/10 |
 85% |
Ghost Town | 24/10 |
 45% |
A Bloody Aria | 24/10 |
| — | Incendiary | 24/10 |
| — | Chocolate | 24/10 |
| — | Saw V | 24/10 |
| — | Outlanders | 24/10 |
