Tradecraft: Neeson Signs On for Taken 3

Deadline reports that Liam Neeson "is closing a deal in the vicinity of $20 million" to reprise his role as Bryan Mills, the former CIA agent hero of Taken and Taken 2 in a third film. That will be his biggest payday ever for the unlikely action star at the age of 61. Neeson was originally reluctant to return for a second outing of neo-Eurospy mayhem, but when the sequel grossed a staggering $376 million, a third entry seemed inevitable. (Indeed, Part 2 left the door decidedly open for another follow-up.) I loved the first film. The second wasn't nearly as good, but I still found it quite entertaining. It would be great if Luc Besson's EuropaCorp could lure the first film's director, Pierre Morel, back for the third entry, but his commitment to giving Sean Penn's career its own Taken-style neo-Eurospy jolt in The Gunman probably precludes that possibility. Deadline suggests that Olivier Megaton, who helmed the sequel (as well as the third Transporter movie), is a likely candidate for the third one, too, but no deal is yet in place. Besson and Robert Mark Kamen are once again penning the script, as they did for the first two entries in the series.

Movie Review: Taken 2 (2012)

Almost four years after the original Luc Besson-produced, Liam Neeson-starring neo-Eurospy flick Taken (review here) became a surprise hit, a sequel finally arrives. And it delivers pretty much exactly what a Taken sequel needs to deliver. Think of Taken 2 as the Die Hard 2 of the Taken franchise: it adheres to the same basic formula of the original with the slightly diminishing returns inherent in reheating a premise… but does so in such a way as to leave fans of the original satisfied that they have, indeed, just seen another Taken movie. Gone, sadly, is the element of surprise that worked so well for the first film, when anything seemed possible around any corner. (I’ve never seen an audience uniformly gasp and jump in their seats the way they did when Neeson’s character suddenly shot someone in the arm unexpectedly.) That’s not really possible the second time around. So what we’re left with instead is the other thing that drove the original: Liam Neeson being a badass in a foreign city. And when the city is as photogenic as Istanbul is, that’s enough for me.

This is, of course, the first of two major spy movies taking advantage of Istanbul’s scenic minarets this fall. (Three if you count a brief scene in Argo.) We will see those same inviting rooftops play host once more to an exciting chase sequence in Skyfall, as we’ve seen them do countless times before, and it never gets old for me. Istanbul is one of my very favorite spy locations, lovingly photographed in genre entries as diverse as Bond movies From Russia With Love and The World Is Not Enough, Eurospy titles like Fury on the Bosphorous and From Istanbul, Orders to Kill, actual Turkish spy films like Golden Boy, and neo-Eurospy entries like The International. I’m happy to report that the ancient city uniquely bridging East and West is well-utilized in Taken 2 (though sadly Neeson never threatens to “tear down the Topkapi Palace” if he has to).

The movie’s plot is a direct continuation of the first film… though not so direct that you couldn’t pick it up easily enough not having seen that one. After former CIA agent Bryan Mills (Neeson) used his “unique skill set” to save his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) from Albanian sex traffickers in Paris, Kim has returned to her home in Beverly Hills and tried to get on with her life. Thus we begin, per formula, with the same sort of cheesy domestic scenes that began the first movie, but they’re far less excruciating this time—even enjoyable. That can mainly be credited to Grace. If there were a Golden Globe for “Most Improved,” Maggie Grace would surely win it hands-down! No doubt slightly embarrassed being a 29-year-old playing a 16-year-old, in the first film she overcompensated by playing Kim like she was 8. Not this time. Now (perhaps thanks to her experience playing a full-grown heroine in another Besson-produced neo-Eurospy flick, Lockout), Kim is a functioning adult. (Well, teenager. She still hasn’t passed her driving test.)

Bryan, meanwhile, is making some inroads with his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen, looking every bit as stunning as she did in GoldenEye 17 years ago), after her rich-guy husband (24’s Xander Berkeley, not present in the sequel) left her. Bryan proposes that his ex and daughter meet him in Istanbul for a vacation when he’s finished up a 4-day private security job. And that, of course, proves to be a bad idea. (The Taken movies might be the first anti-tourist spy movies, insinuating that whenever Americans travel abroad, they inevitably get targeted by sex traffickers and their families! I actually know some women forever put off Parisian vacations by the first film.) Istanbul is too close for comfort, it turns out, to Albania, where a little village mourns the loss of many sons (all awful, evil criminals—but no matter) slain by Mills in the first film. Chief pallbearer is grieving father Rade Sherbedgia (The Saint, 24, M:I-2), and whenever he shows up there’s bound to be trouble. Sherbedgia’s character, Murad Krasniqi, leads a small army, like pigs to slaughter, on a road trip down to Turkey to have their revenge on Mills and his family.

Luckily, when Bryan and Lenore are, ahem, taken (after a rousing pursuit through the city’s old world streets and bazaars), Kim is back at the hotel hanging out by the pool. This enables Bryan, through some ingenuity learned in the CIA, to secretly contact her and instruct her on how to find the location where her parents are being held. His circuitous plan involves Kim throwing hand grenades all over Istanbul (don’t ask), but it’s suitably filmic and fun to watch—and it works! The film’s best scenes involve Mills and his daughter teaming up to save Lenore. Whether Bryan is talking Kim through a rooftop foot chase over a cell phone or shouting driving instructions at her during a high-speed car chase through the labyrinthine streets of Istanbul, the high-octane father/daughter bonding adds a welcome new dimension to the Taken formula.

The biggest disappointment compared to the first film comes from the action sequences. While I’ve enjoyed a number of Olivier Megaton’s films, he doesn’t have Pierre Morel’s gift for directing fights and chases in a lightning-paced manner that still enables viewers to always know exactly what’s going on. Instead (here more than in Colombiana or Transporter 3, unfortunately), Megaton and his editors fall back on that oh-so-popular zeitgeist crutch of cutting the fights up so rapidly so as to render them incomprehensible—seemingly in an attempt to disguise the fact that they weren’t shot very dynamically to begin with. Megaton’s perfectly adept with car chases and firefights, but resorts to that stroby fast-cutting to cover up the shortcomings in Taken 2’s mano-a-many-mano fight scenes. That’s a shame, because audiences want to see Liam Neeson being the badass we know him to be from the first film unencumbered by such gaudy distractions.

The directing doesn’t live up to the first film, but the surprisingly solid script makes the most of delivering a new storyline within the confines of the established series formula. The exotic setting is top-notch, Neeson is as good as ever, Grace is dramatically better than before, and there’s more Famke Janssen, which is always a good thing. The sequel also benefits from a more clearly defined villain to root against, and milks some considerable humor from the previously grating domestic scenes. (There’s almost as much anticipation in seeing how the world’s most overprotective dad will react to his daughter’s new boyfriend as how he will save his ex-wife from being slowly bled to death while suspended upside-down!) All-in-all, Taken 2 is a sequel that delivers the expected goods, and should appeal to fans of the original and fans of the neo-Eurospy genre at large.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Colombiana

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Colombiana

Is Zoe Saldana the perfect stocking stuffer? Clearly Sony think so. DVD Active reports that the studio will release Luc Besson's latest neo-Eurospy effort, Colombiana, on DVD and Blu-ray on December 20. Written by Besson and his Taken cohort Robert Mark Kamen and directed by future Taken 2 director Olivier Megaton, Colombiana stars Zoe Saldana as a waifish assassin with a penchant for very large guns in the tradition of Besson's Nikita. And it's a lot of fun. (Read my review here.) The DVD, set to retail for $30.99, will feature deleted scenes and two featurettes ("Colombiana: The Making Of" and "Cataleya's Journey"); the Blu-ray ($35.99) will include all that as well as three additional featurettes ("Assassins," "Training A Killer," "Take The Ride") and a Colombiana PS3 Wallpaper/Theme. (Does that really count as a feature?)

Movie Review: Colombiana (2011)

Movie Review: Colombiana (2011)

The latest neo-Eurospy action confection from Luc Besson’s prolific EuropaCorp is neither particularly “Euro” (in terms of locales, at least; there’s plenty of Gallic money involved) nor “spy” (outside of a sleazy CIA agent character), but it still manages to typify the genre. Colombiana may not quite be a spy movie, but it’s bursting with all the neo-Eurospy spirit with which Besson has imbued such mid-range action hits (and occasional misses) as Taken, From Paris With Love and the Transporter series. It’s written, in fact, by the Taken team of Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, and directed by Transporter 3 helmer Olivier Megaton (who’s also attached to direct Taken 2), and fans of those films will find plenty to like in Colombiana as well.

Colombiana (a kind of arbitrary title despite the initial setting) begins in 1992* when a young girl named Cataleya (Amandla Stenberg) witnesses the deaths of her parents at the hands of a cartel killer named Marco (Knight and Day’s Jordi Mollà). She knows that Marco is working for drug kingpin Don Luis (Betto Benites), the sort of well-heeled bad guy who’s always got “Ave Maria” playing at his mansion. 12-year-old Cataleya vows on the spot to kill Don Luis, plunges a knife into Marco’s hand and dives out the window, leading his goons on a breakneck parkour chase across the scenic roofs, streets and sewers of Bogota. This would be a pretty awesome action scene in any movie, but the fact that it’s a little kid versus heavily-armed hoodlums makes it that much moreso. Young Cataleya still has a few more audience gasp-inducing shock value surprises up her sleeve before growing up to be Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana.

Inspired by Xena, Warrior Princess (an anachronism if we take the 1992 date at face value, but still a cool reference) and under the tutelage of her uncle Emilio (Missing’s Cliff Curtis, having a blast doing Tony Montana), Cataleya has become a world-class assassin. We first witness her skills in one of the film’s many virtuoso assassination setpieces in which she infiltrates a heavily guarded police station and slays a prisoner being held in one of its cells before making a clean getaway. Best of all, she does this in a skintight (and I do mean skintight!) Diabolik-style catsuit. (The specific Diabolik reference is probably just a coincidence, but a scene shortly thereafter in which she dances to a Phoebe Killdeer song** with the lyrics “Deeper Down” makes me wonder…) Another sequence finds her penetrating a villain’s compound by swimming in through his personal glass-topped shark tank, Thunderball-style, and emerging through one of the panels of his see-through floor. It makes a great visual and a striking entrance. Some of the assassination scenes are remarkably similar to those in the 2011 Jason Statham Mechanic remake (as is a New Orleans location; perhaps Louisiana’s tax incentives are especially enticing for assassin movies?), but Megaton executes them with far more style than Simon West.

Saldana acquits herself very nicely as an action heroine, and even manages to bring a bit more compassion and humanity to her single-mindedly revenge-bent character than seems to have been on the page. She’s far too skinny to make a convincing combatant, but (presumably for that reason) her character doesn’t actually engage in hand-to-hand combat when she can help it. Cataleya prefers guns. (Never mind that the recoil from some of the gargantuan ordinance she favors would probably knock her featherweight frame back to Colombia; Besson knows that there’s something inherently sexy about a waif with a big gun, and Saldana brings the sexy!) When she does finally find herself in a close-quarters, unarmed brawl, she loses her near-superhuman Lady Terminator edge and finds herself more evenly matched, even with an opponent twice her age. Thus the stakes are successfully raised exactly when they need to be.

All of Cataleya’s killings are signed with a lipstick drawing on her victims’ bodies of a Cattleya orchid in an attempt to get the attention of Don Luis. The former drug kingpin has proven particularly tough to track down because he’s been relocated to the USA (the aforementioned New Orleans, of course) under the protection of the CIA. The precise reasons for this are never made entirely clear, but this isn’t the sort of movie that needs to clarify its reasons. (From Paris With Love, another Besson production, even made a good joke out of how boring the producer apparently finds superfluous exposition.) Eventually Cataleya succeeds in getting his attention this way—as well as that of the FBI. Their investigation is led by Lennie James (a standout in Human Target and one of the many fine actors whose talents were utterly wasted in that lame Prisoner remake, here channeling a skinny Forrest Whitaker), a generally underused actor whose mere presence tends to elevate the material he’s in (well, except for The Prisoner, but that wasn’t his fault). Sure enough, he makes the most of all of his scenes here—particularly an office visit to that sleazy CIA agent that Cataleya crashes. All this attention makes it hard for Cataleya to carry on a normal(ish… sort of) relationship with Alias’ Michael Vartan, here stuck in the mostly thankless “assassin’s boyfriend” role ripped right out of Besson’s La Femme Nikita. (Vartan’s Danny is differentiated from that movie’s Marco in that he’s a hilariously bad painter instead of a would-be boat-maker.)

That Nikita connection is hardly coincidental. The waifish female assassin with an affinity for heavy artillery is not new territory for Luc Besson. He knows this terrain like the back of his hand, and does it better than just about anyone else. While Colombiana incorporates a lot of elements from Besson’s directorial efforts Nikita and The Professional (in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of this script are recycled directly from his scrapped Professional sequel), Megaton’s film never achieves the rich characterizations or operatic destruction of those movies—though it comes close on the latter front.

Megaton’s early action sequences successfully echo Besson’s meticulously orchestrated mayhem, in which he clearly defined the spatial relationships between all participants and then gave audiences a clear view of exactly how the action unfolded. Unfortunately, Megaton abandons that style for the climactic confrontation between Cataleya and her persecutors, opting instead for frenetic, strobe-like editing. That’s a shame, because her final fight with Marco looks to be brutal and well-choreographed from what you can make out of it. The editing might, in fact, be intentionally obscuring some of that brutality in order to secure the film its PG-13 rating. Colombiana redefines the notion of a “hard PG-13” with enough violence and nudity (or near nudity, at least; that catsuit is revealing!) that it should tide over even the most demanding action fans pretty well until the inevitable Unrated Blu-ray release. Add to that some fantastic locations, a very impressive supporting cast, a handful of those Taken-style shock moments we’ve come to expect from these EuropaCorp actioners, a really cool cover of Portishead’s “Glory Box” by John Martyn and Johny Cash’s version of “Hurt”… and that catsuit… and you’ve got yourself another highly entertaining example of the mid-budget action extravaganza—or neo-Eurospy movie—as only Luc Besson can make them. And as the first female heroine in this relatively recent subgenre, Saldana ably proves herself in the ranks of Statham, Neeson and Travolta.

*At least “1992” is what the on-screen caption says; other clues, like a Xena comic book and the fact that the rest of the action takes place “15 years later” would seem to indicate a setting closer to ’96. Perhaps it was scripted as beginning in the mid-Nineties, then changed to ‘92 in post-production to better reflect Zoe Saldana’s age?

**“Fade Out Lines” by Phoebe Killdeer and the Short Straws

Tradecraft: Taken 2 Set in Istanbul

Deadline reveals that the city Liam Neeson will tear apart in the eagerly awaited Taken sequel will be a classic spy location: Istanbul.  I love that!  Their proximity to Europe made Istanbul and Beirut the most common "exotic" cities frequented by Eurospy heroes in the Sixties, and through my love of those movies (as well, of course, as Ian Fleming's novel From Russia With Love and the subsequent film adaptation), it's become one of my very favorite spy locations.  (Though I've never been there, alas.)  Therefore it's more than appropriate that the sequel to the most successful film of the neo-Eurospy movement (original review here) should take place there.  I look forward to seeing Liam Neeson threaten to tear down the Hagia Sophia if he has to. 

There was apparently a brief possibility that Neeson wouldn't return, which was the thrust of the Deadline article, but fortunately the scheduling issues have been worked out and the actor is now set to reprise his role as badass ex-spy Bryan Mills.  According to the trade blog, producer Luc Besson was briefly considering replacing him with Ralf Fiennes, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Sean Bean or Jason Isaacs.  While I'd love to see Fiennes or Bean topline one of these neo-Eurospy actioners, there would have been no point in proceeding with this franchise without Neeson, so I'm glad the issues were worked out.  Filming is now set to begin at the tail end of this year or the beginning of next, so we won't be seeing Taken 2 in theaters before Fall 2012 at the earliest.  (And I'd bet February 2013 is more likely. Oh well, at least we've got ABC's Missing to tide us over! The pilot script is very Taken-ish and very good.) Transporter 3 helmer Olivier Megaton is reportedly in talks to direct this one.  Original writers Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have penned the script, and Fox is expected to once again distribute in the US.  Still no word on who will be taken this time around, but I really hope it's not Mills' daughter again...

Movie Review: TRANSPORTER 3 (2008)

Movie Review: Transporter 3 (2008)

The Eurospy genre is alive and well thanks to the efforts of Luc Besson and his Europa Corp. Yes, I know that a "transporter" is not a spy, but for all practical purposes these are spy movies: fast cars, hot babes, impossible stunts and daffy action in exotic European locales (from Marseilles to Munich to Budapest to Odessa). Specifically, they’re Roger Moore Bond movies with a different sort of leading man. (The wink and the self-deprecating humor are traded for abs and abs and a face that doesn’t look all wrinkly when sucking the air out of tires underwater.)

In the spectrum of extant Transporter movies, Transporter 3 isn’t quite as good as the sublimely over-the-top Transporter 2, but it’s definitely more enjoyable than the first film. Director Olivier Megaton, new to the series with this installment, lacks some of Louis Leterrier’s patience. Leterrier was content to stand back and give full coverage to action choreographer Corey Yuen’s impressive fight spectacles, allowing star Jason Statham to show off his moves. Megaton subscribes to the more contemporary school of action direction, and cuts too quickly. If Statham’s still got the same impressive moves he demonstrated last time out, he never gets to really show them off here, which is too bad. But even at their choppiest, the fight scenes are always at least coherent, which is sadly more than can be said for Quantum of Solace. Furthermore, Megaton has the good sense to let the car chases (and a very impressive bike chase) play out entirely unimpeded by unnecessarily choppy editing, and those are the bread and butter of any Transporter movie.

The plot to Transporter 3 makes no sense at all. In fact, the very involvement of the hero, the transporter, is never remotely justified. There’s nothing that needs transporting. He’s completely extraneous to the bad guys’ rote kidnapping plot. But that doesn’t seem to bother the writers, and damned if it didn’t bother me, either. The filmmakers are so committed to their utterly (as I said before) daffy action that plot matters little. True to Eurospy form.

As a dedicated follower of Fleming, and as a staunch admirer of Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale, I realize that it’s wrong for me to lionize the Roger Moore era of Bond. I shouldn’t want that. But for some reason, I do. When watching Quantum of Solace a second time recently, as Bond haphazardly chased someone across the rooftops of Sienna I found myself wishing I were watching Roger Moore. It took me another moment to realize that of course, that’s not really what I wanted at all. I love Craig’s 007. What I really wanted was John Glen. If I was watching an Eighties Moore film, I’d be able to follow the action completely and take in the amazing scenery at the same time, because John Glen would direct it in an unflashy, even workmanlike manner that would allow me to do so. It didn’t matter that it clearly wasn’t Roger performing most of those stunts (likewise it clearly isn't Jason Statham riding the bicycle!); the Bond team in the Eighties committed to exactly the same sense of daffy action that the Transporter team does today, and after the dead-serious, gritty shaky-cam action of Quantum of Solace, it was refreshing to wallow in such unashamed... fun as Transporter 3.

The movie piles on the Bond references. There are whole heaping bits of GoldenEye, a direct steal from Diamonds Are Forever and the aforementioned tire air breathing from A View To A Kill (which I've always thought to be one of the cooler moments in that movie), to mention just a few. (There’s even an actor from The Living Daylights–Jeroen Krabbe.) But in each case, Transporter 3 takes things a bit further than its illustrious predecessors. Not only does Statham’s Frank Martin survive underwater by sucking air from his car’s tires; he somehow uses that air to inflate some bags he had in his trunk and float the whole car to the surface! Yes, it’s impossible, but that’s the world of Transporter. Frank doesn’t drive through an alley on two wheels of his car; he drives between two eighteen wheelers moving at high speed! (Though we never get a satisfactory shot explaining exactly how he gets his Audi on two side wheels without the benefit of a ramp! The same way Sean Connery managed to flip his Mustang halfway down the alley, I guess.) And rather than stopping a train with a tank to face down the villain as 007 did, Frank Martin actually jumps his car onto the moving train... twice. They recycle stunts from Bond, but they do them even bigger, in loving homage.

I hate to imply that Transporter 3 out-Bonds Bond. You’ll find none of the pathos, none of the rich characterizations or stellar performances, and none of the genuine drama of the latest 007 adventure here. But there were moments when classic Eurospy movies managed to one-up the very thing they were desperately aping, like Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina rising out of the water in bikinis and brandishing spearguns in Deadlier Than the Male, or Daniella Bianchi machine-gunning people while dressed as a nun, then stripping down to a bathing suit and diving off a cliff in Special Mission Lady Chaplin. And in that tradition, Transporter 3 contains a few action setpieces far more Bondian than anything in Bond's own latest offering–even on a decidedly lower budget.


Of course, every Eurospy movie needs a hot Euro-babe. Olga Kurylenko filled that role in last year’s Hitman, and look where she is today! After the first Transporter 3 trailer hit, I speculated as to whether Natalya Rudakova would be able to follow in her footsteps. At the time, there was no information on Rudakova whatsoever on the web. Well, judging from the number of hits that story has been getting via Google searches since the movie opened, the striking freckled redhead has certainly struck a chord with viewers. While she never wields two guns as makeup streaks her face as she does on the poster (and as her predecessor Kate Nuata did in Transporter 2), she is sexy, which is really the most basic requirement of any Eurospy starlet. Her party girl character is a bit annoying at times, but Rudakova has fun with that and earns quite a few laughs.

Furthermore, her character becomes the first woman in a Transporter movie to actually become romantically involved with Frank Martin.

In the first two movies, Frank wanted nothing to do with women. It was explained away under his strict adherence to his own specific set of strict rules, which didn’t allow for such distractions–but he almost seemed afraid of the fairer sex. Rudakova’s Valentina picks up on this and exploits it fully. And this is how the Eurospy genre has changed in forty years. At one point, Valentina steals Frank’s car keys (the most important things in the world to a professional driver), and demands that Frank do a strip tease for her to get them back. (She’s already watched him fight topless with great interest.) Then she demands even more from him, and Frank finally succumbs to feminine wiles. This is exactly the sort of behavior that one of the loathsome, chauvinist Sixties male Eurospy heroes would have engaged in. (I can just picture Kommissar X’s Tony Kendall forcing a reluctant woman to strip for some keys! In fact, maybe he did...) Natalya Rudakova makes the prospect much more appealing. In forty plus years, things have some full circle. Gloria Steinem might not agree, but for the Eurospy genre, this is feminism.

It may not have done it with quite the finesse of the second movie in the series, but for the most part, Transporter 3 delivered exactly what I wanted from it. It’s fun, mindless action with a likable hero and a sexy girl. It’s crazy car stunts that unfold impressively before the viewers’ eyes, and not off camera between rapid cuts. And it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s daffy action. It’s Eurospy.