LOVE ACTUALLY (2003)

Divided up into numerous smaller stories, LOVE ACTUALLY insults any human who possesses empathy and/or an IQ above room temperature with multiple vomitous, I mean, romantic tales about love.  For example: a woman is recently married and then when she discovers that her husband’s best friend likes her, she cheats on her husband with the best friend.  How romantic!  In another story, a husband is cheating on his wife and only after his heartbroken wife confronts him about it does he admit that he is a fool.  Too late now motherfucker!  In yet another heartstring tugger, a man catches his wife and his brother fucking, so he rebounds by seducing his non-English speaking housekeeper.  Wow.  That’s lovely.

The cast is very impressive and the acting is fine, but this movie can go straight fuck itself.  I hate the way it’s filmed, the musical cues for the intellectually stunted are insulting and the overall message is absolute rubbish.  If your marketing campaign is about how the movie is super romantic, then maybe have the film feature characters who are emotionally evolved enough to actually be honest with each other.  I’d rather be alone forever than get tricked into a relationship with a dishonest, soulless, weak-minded, chickenshit cheating sack of shit. Go feed yourself more lies.

Years ago I had the supreme misfortune to meet one subhuman in particular who thought this movie was actually romantic. She ended up having the personality of a war criminal and the morals of a tomcat who enjoys raping kittens to death, so maybe LOVE ACTUALLY is a good test to see if a person is a vile inhuman piece of shit or not.

TAKEN 2 (2012)

Taking place soon after the events of the first film, TAKEN 2 opens with a funeral in a remote Albanian village.  The funeral is for some of the gangsters that Liam Neeson killed while rescuing his daughter from the sex traffickers in the first film.  The relatives, lead by the father of one of the dead men, swears revenge on Liam.   Liam inadvertently makes it easy for them (and the writers) by taking a security job in Istanbul, Turkey and allowing his daughter and ex-wife to visit.  So now, all the bad guys have to do is drive over there and kidnap them.

The believability of TAKEN 2 is pretty out there, but oh well, at least we get to see Liam Neeson kicking ass and in the end: isn't that all that really matters?  Tons of people getting punching, zero nudity, lots of shooting with hardly any blood or wounds, more of that extreme editing and close-ups during the fighting scenes (I'm really getting tired of that shit), predictable outcome, increased screentime for Maggie Grace who wears shorts a lot, hand grenade tossing, one hell of a car chase, nice photography. 

TAKEN 2 isn't as satisfying as the original film and I think that has to do with the story being pretty ehhh and the location of Istanbul simply isn't as exciting as Paris.  Still, it's worth a watch for action fans.  Not a terrible sequel, but I was hoping for much more.  I thought it would be interesting if Liam's daughter was now a popular singer and she got kidnapped while on tour.

If you need me, I'll be in my room watching COMMANDO.

Part 1 - Taken (2008)
Part 3 - Taken 3 (2014)