Wow, that was fast! It seemed like only a few days ago we learned that the third Taken movie would awesomely be called Tak3n, and now there’s already a trailer. It’s almost as they pump these movies out as quickly as possible or something.
Taken 2 (aka Taken Too!) director Olivier Megaton (aka Oliv1er M3gatr0n, with a fuse coming out of the O), who took over for Taken director Pierre Morel, is back for the third installment, and it looks like he’s done a bang-up job with this one. One of my favorite parts of any revenge movie is the “calm before the storm” scene, where they bend over backwards to make the protagonist’s pre-bad guy life look preposterously idyllic, to justify him eventually getting pissed and murdering everyone. The seminal example of which being Arnold Schwarzenegger hand feeding deer and having a playful ice cream fight with his daughter Alyssa Milano in Commando before that fat Aussie in the chain mail shirt shows up to ruin everything. But Tak3n presents a strong challenge for the title of Most Ridiculous Calm Before The Storm scene, when 13 seconds into the trailer, Neeson shows up with a bottle of champagne and a giant stuffed panda.
This screen cap is everything.
Next thing you know, Liam Neesons is framed for his wife’s murder, forcing him to headbutt half of LA County, even though all he really wants is to get drunk on champagne and have freaky furry sex with his family (I think?). Then, almost as awesome as the Calm Before The Storm scene comes the Someone Reading The Good Guy’s Resume scene. You know how that one goes. “It says here you were top of your class at Harvard Assassin school until you got expelled for choking out your drill sergeant when you saw him kick a puppy!”
“I done what I done. I’m just a mild-mannered pastry chef now.”
Only the Tak3n twist to Resume Reading scene is that the guy reading the resume is Forrest Whitaker, which I have to say is a pretty good twist. I’m just glad it was Liam Neeson’s wife and not his daughter who got murdered in this one, because it just wouldn’t be a Taken movie without Maggie Grace acting like a special needs child. Suffice it to say, if you get excited about Liam Neesons movies, you should be thrilled about this one.