Taken (2008, U.S.)

Taken is one of the best suspense movies I've seen in a long, long time. I saw it because Meghan had been wanting to see it, and I rarely turn down a movie invite. In this case, I'm glad I didn't.

On the one hand, the plot of this film was ridiculously unbelievable. But at the same time, it was chillingly believable. A teenager and her friend go to Paris together, only to immediately fall for a cute French guy who is the tip of a human trafficking iceberg. Her ex-military father is determined to hunt them down and save his daughter before it's too late.

The action is great. Even the violence falls perfectly between gory and stylized, which is the only kind of violence I really like in a film. Unlike the last suspense film I saw (The International), how Neeson's character figures out the clues to get from point A to point B makes sense. The acting is phenomenal. The filmmakers also did an exceptional job with making the characters truly realistic, even down to a very convincing father-daughter relationship between Neeson and Grace. Really, this relationship was the backbone of the entire film.

I'm not one to watch action movies over and over again, but I could definitely see giving this one a second viewing. It was incredible.

Rating: 4.0

The International (2009, U.S.)

I have rarely been so disappointed with a film starring one of my favorite actors. Or by such a prestigious director. But The International just... wasn't good. I can't say that it was bad, necessarily, but nor was it worth the two hours spent watching it.

It started out really promising, with a shockingly long closeup of Clive Owen's face, looking pensive. That one shot built up more tension than the rest of the movie combined, probably. Why is he just standing there? What's going on? And then a man he's working with dies in front of him, and you think he's about to be killed the same way. But really it was just his overactive imagination. And the suspense end there.

The rest of the film is just a confusing mess. Naomi Watts plays a New York ADA and Clive Owen plays an Interpol agent trying to expose a corrupt international bank. How an NY ADA is going to help with this is very unclear. I guess it was unclear to the screenwriters as well, because Watts' screen time was incredibly short, considering she was given top billing with Owen.

I just don't even have that much to say about this film. The acting was great, of course. Some of the cinematography was unbelievable, including a drawn-out gun fight that takes place in a museum with fascinating architecture. (It could be said, however, that the whole film depended too much on this scene, which was drawn out entirely too long.) I didn't even pay that much attention to the score, which was done by the same guys who did Run Lola Run. It should have been more memorable.

All in all, a huge disappointment.

Rating: 2.0