TAKEN (2008)

"It was all personal to me."

When some sex slave traffickers kidnap ex-CIA operative dude Liam Neeson's daughter, he goes all Arnold Schwarzenegger from COMMANDO on their bootyholes and starts fucking shit up left and right.  The End.

I enjoyed TAKEN quite a bit.  The opening build-up relayed all of the pertinent information quickly.  After that, it was just Neeson running around Paris beating the shit out of people.  Yeah, there's multiple problems with the story, but who really cares?  The main attraction here is to see Liam Neeson handing out free knuckle-sandwiches and that he does.  He's a great action star.

As usual, I'm always hoping that a movie is darker than it usually is and TAKEN is no different.  I think from a story standpoint, a couple of A SERBIAN FILM touches would have worked wonders in showing exactly how dangerous the bad guys were, but that never happened.  Exhilarating car chases, emotional kidnapping scene, zero nudity, tons of shooting with no bloody wounds, a brief scene at the beginning shows that Liam's ex-CIA coworker was Jon Gries (King Vidiot from JOYSTICKS!), torture, fighting scenes with editing so quick and the camera so close that you have a hard time following what's happening, just a series of bad guys and no main boss fight at the end, nice location shooting in California and Paris.

TAKEN was a fun film.  Definitely worth a watch for action fans.  I'm hoping in part 2 they include Neeson's friends in on the action!  How awesome would that be to see King Vidiot running around getting his blast on, shooting people...and kicking bicycles.

Part 2 - Taken 2 (2012)
Part 3 - Taken 3 (2014)

SNOWPIERCER (2013)

"I believe it is easier for people to survive on this train if they have some level of insanity."

Set in 2031, SNOWPIERCER tells about how way back in ye olde 2014 countries all over the world purposely released some climate engineering shit into the atmosphere in hopes of counteracting the rising temperatures...it worked.  It worked so well, in fact, that it created another ice age and nearly killed all life on Earth.  D'oh!

Nobody knows how many people survived in underground bunkers or caves.  SNOWPIERCER only tells story of a large group of survivors on a massive train that drives around all over the planet nonstop.  Now the logistics of a train driving fast as shit, nonstop for 17 years busting through mountains of snow and walls of ice is completely ridiculous, but whatever.  The entire movie is filmed in a kinda vague, surrealistic way so I don't think reality was what the filmmakers were going for.  I think SNOWPIERCER is more about style.

As such, it succeeds.  The story is about the inhabitants on the back of the train (the "slum" area) getting sick and tired of their living conditions, so they revolt and start making their way to the front of the train.  All kinds of hip imagery and fight scenes follow.  If you don't put too much stock into the story and just enjoy the ride, SNOWPIERCER is an enjoyable ride.  The fight scenes could have been more brutal, but I definitely got a SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM vibe a few times (the woman in the yellow jacket scene and the look on Tilda Swinton's face during the night vision scene) so that was a good thing.

Quick pace, good acting (I especially liked Alison Pill as the tripped out school teacher...eyes all rolling back in her head with psychotic fervor), plot holes galore, under use of Kang-ho Song, exciting action scenes that look good but lack any real violence, good lighting, unsatisfying ending.

For what it is, SNOWPIERCER is a fun film.  I would really like to see a ultra-gritty video game version. [Update 2021: The Snowpiercer level on Hitman III is dope!]

Worth a watch.