Escape to the Movies: Taken 3 - The One Where Liam Neeson Beats People Up

Tribalism

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I watched this review and like others, I've noticed a trend in Bob's content. I'd address the points in a longer post, but frankly, I don't want to. My personal belief is that the best course of action for Bob is to watch movies from an objective standpoint primarily and detach from the agendas or political motives he may hold. If he's not the target audience for a film, if they don't push his buttons, don't view it. Few of us come here to view videos from Bob where he makes a 5 minute rant about his white male guilt, we come here for film reviews. What irked me with this review is how slapped together it was.

A 4 minute review. 28 seconds of rambling at the start. A long clip from Taken 1 that wasn't a driving point for the review. Until 1:27, the review hasn't even started. At 2:00, he starts reviewing parts of Taken 1 which may affect your viewing experience of Taken 3*. By 2:20 he's made sweeping claims about the entire franchise. By 2:42, he's stopped having his little political rant and begins to address Taken 3. By 4:25, he's done.

That's a whopping 1m 43s devoted to criticism leveled at Taken 3 and even then, it's a phoned in "this fits my agenda/political views, I need views, I'll just rant about this".

The film might be bad, I don't doubt that, but I want to hear why it's bad. You've got 4+ minutes of airtime, let's hear it. Tell us why it's good, what works and what doesn't and why it doesn't. Taken 3 mildly interests me because I enjoyed the first one. I came into this review wanting to hear more about it and left sorely disappointed. I'm transitioning over to other reviewers because I'm getting VERY tired of Bob's inability to review even partially objectively. I know that opinions and subjectivity come as part of the film reviewer package, but few come as preachy and condescending as Moviebob.

*That is if your politics and white male guilt are so fiercely ingrained in you that you can't enjoy a generic action film without thinking "huh, wouldn't this franchise be better if Neeson was served humble pie rather than being a badass".
 

WiseBass

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@hentropy
The plain fact is that police departments in every first world country have a hard time combating human trafficking BECAUSE the people being trafficked are poor, vulnerable, and many times born into the life or went into it at an early age.

This. Even Neeson himself just recently wrote a letter about how unrealistic the whole situation is when some teacher told him the movie had made her students scared to go to Europe.

Basically, traffickers don't generally traffic people who actually have someone who might come looking for them. They target the vulnerable - illegal immigrants in particular (in Europe and elsewhere) tend to be targeted for human trafficking and sexual slavery. In fact, they often don't even need to kidnap women for it - they just have recruiters in very poor countries convince women to come with them for a job in a rich country (which may or may not be sex work) and then ensnare them once they have them.

In any case, I'm not surprised they went with the "Fugitive" storyline. Hasn't Neeson more or less killed off anyone tied to or involved in the original kidnapping of his daughter? There's no one left.
 

daxterx2005

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I was under the impression Paddington was a stuffed bear in the books, now he's a live bear?
Am I entirely wrong, or did they change something >.>
 

RoonMian

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tyriless said:
No, Liam Neeson finds her in the Albanian sleazeball headquarters dead from OD.


WiseBass said:
@hentropy
The plain fact is that police departments in every first world country have a hard time combating human trafficking BECAUSE the people being trafficked are poor, vulnerable, and many times born into the life or went into it at an early age.

This. Even Neeson himself just recently wrote a letter about how unrealistic the whole situation is when some teacher told him the movie had made her students scared to go to Europe.

Basically, traffickers don't generally traffic people who actually have someone who might come looking for them. They target the vulnerable - illegal immigrants in particular (in Europe and elsewhere) tend to be targeted for human trafficking and sexual slavery. In fact, they often don't even need to kidnap women for it - they just have recruiters in very poor countries convince women to come with them for a job in a rich country (which may or may not be sex work) and then ensnare them once they have them.

In any case, I'm not surprised they went with the "Fugitive" storyline. Hasn't Neeson more or less killed off anyone tied to or involved in the original kidnapping of his daughter? There's no one left.
It was even worse. In the first movie the French domestic intelligence service was in on it, even his own friend. Like France was the worst banana republic.
 

Heartsib

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daxterx2005 said:
I was under the impression Paddington was a stuffed bear in the books, now he's a live bear?
Am I entirely wrong, or did they change something >.>
Paddington was always a real bear in the stories. You might be thinking of Winnie-the-Pooh.
 

Ralancian

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The Real Sandman said:
Paradoxrifts said:
Lately I've been watching/listening to Mark Kermode on the kermodeandmayo [https://www.youtube.com/user/kermodeandmayo] Youtube channel for "professional" reviews, although he can be quite funny as well.
Wheat you actually need to do is listen to the weekly podcasts of their radio 5 live show (they are available outside the UK I just don't know how). http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/kermode

By far the most informed and most accessible film criticism available. Yes I don't always agree with the good doctor but at least you can understand why he hates a film and he at least judges everyone on it's own merit just if they offend him for his politically sensibility it' because that's what actually happens in the film.

I've stopped even watching Bob's reviews now and just read them less irritating that way. However the fact he hasn't reviewed to of the best films of the last year The Imitation Game and The Theroy of Everything (which are going to be huge awards season) but can do an entire episode on trailers just shows how far down he has come. He also missed out one of the bigger horror films even though that suppose to be partially his things (Babadook). He's not watched Boyhood either form what I can tell and that's many other critics favorite film of last year (sure he'll rag on other critics but he never seams to watch the films they liked).
 

the7ofswords

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Well, that's about what I expected.

As far as the Ant-Man poster, it immediately brought to my mind the famous "Think Small" Volkwagen ad campaign from the late 1950s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Small
 

The Real Sandman

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Ralancian said:
The Real Sandman said:
Paradoxrifts said:
Lately I've been watching/listening to Mark Kermode on the kermodeandmayo [https://www.youtube.com/user/kermodeandmayo] Youtube channel for "professional" reviews, although he can be quite funny as well.
Wheat you actually need to do is listen to the weekly podcasts of their radio 5 live show (they are available outside the UK I just don't know how). http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/kermode

By far the most informed and most accessible film criticism available. Yes I don't always agree with the good doctor but at least you can understand why he hates a film and he at least judges everyone on it's own merit just if they offend him for his politically sensibility it' because that's what actually happens in the film.

I've stopped even watching Bob's reviews now and just read them less irritating that way. However the fact he hasn't reviewed to of the best films of the last year The Imitation Game and The Theroy of Everything (which are going to be huge awards season) but can do an entire episode on trailers just shows how far down he has come. He also missed out one of the bigger horror films even though that suppose to be partially his things (Babadook). He's not watched Boyhood either form what I can tell and that's many other critics favorite film of last year (sure he'll rag on other critics but he never seams to watch the films they liked).
I do listen to the podcast! :D

I guess you brought up another thing. Bob has this great opportunity to introduce an unfamiliar audience to some really interesting movies they might not have had heard about or had previous interest in.

Nightcrawler, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inherent Vice, and the ones you noted are movies I think a lot of people on this site would want to check out if Bob did a video review of.

I find it a bit off putting that he saves the full video review spotlight for such "widely hyped and exciting hits" as 22 Jump Street, Leprechaun: Origins, The Equalizer, John Wick, Ouija, Dumb and Dumber To, and a freaking trailer review, rather than any of the other films mentioned above. It wouldn't matter if Bob were positive or negative about the films, they would just make for more interesting reviews.
 

daxterx2005

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Heartsib said:
daxterx2005 said:
I was under the impression Paddington was a stuffed bear in the books, now he's a live bear?
Am I entirely wrong, or did they change something >.>
Paddington was always a real bear in the stories. You might be thinking of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Nah, I figured out what I was thinking of. It was Corduroy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy_%28book%29

How long until this becomes a movie :3
 

Shjade

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Feb 2, 2010
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Baresark said:
Shjade said:
Baresark said:
The idea is that the movie appeals to those people because it's an accurate description of how their lives have gone and how they feel, which is not calling a spade a spade.
...no. The idea is that the movie appeals because it's an INaccurate description of their lives in which they're actually the heroes who know best and if their wives would've just listened to them everything would've been better for everyone. Which, in most cases, probably isn't true.
Eh, rewatch the review. Bob basically gives his opinion on what the Taken franchise is. He doesn't say it's meant to be that way. I just think that is him being bitter and you holding onto every word he says as fact.
You're free to think that if you like.

The "fact," however, is that I called it "the idea," not holding anything up "as fact." Nor have I made any appeal to emotion.

Sorry, Baresark, but judging by your initial reply - the one I got in my inbox, the one you apparently deleted and replaced with this rather more tame (if still misguided) post later - you seem to have more emotional investment in this franchise and Bob's review of it than I do. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to think about, maybe.
 

Baresark

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Shjade said:
Baresark said:
Shjade said:
Baresark said:
The idea is that the movie appeals to those people because it's an accurate description of how their lives have gone and how they feel, which is not calling a spade a spade.
...no. The idea is that the movie appeals because it's an INaccurate description of their lives in which they're actually the heroes who know best and if their wives would've just listened to them everything would've been better for everyone. Which, in most cases, probably isn't true.
Eh, rewatch the review. Bob basically gives his opinion on what the Taken franchise is. He doesn't say it's meant to be that way. I just think that is him being bitter and you holding onto every word he says as fact.
You're free to think that if you like.

The "fact," however, is that I called it "the idea," not holding anything up "as fact." Nor have I made any appeal to emotion.

Sorry, Baresark, but judging by your initial reply - the one I got in my inbox, the one you apparently deleted and replaced with this rather more tame (if still misguided) post later - you seem to have more emotional investment in this franchise and Bob's review of it than I do. Not necessarily a bad thing, but something to think about, maybe.
That is correct. I decided that it's not worth debating over. And it's not. Both you and Bob are well within your rights to think whatever you want about the movie, just don't be surprised if it appeals to people for other reasons than what you think. I don't have much an emotional attachment to the movies as much as I did to my argument, or to be more precise I found myself arguing for the sake of it when no one is going to change anyone's opinion here. I don't see what you and Bob see, we are just different.
 

Creedsareevil

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Taken 2 at least was a follow up to NeesonDad basically murdering his way through a dozen mooks (who had families too!) by showing that the families of those mooks are not amused.

It was an extra round that was not needed, but welcome.

Now 3 is just... not needed.