The Twist: Move over John McClane, the same sh*t's happened to Bryan Mills three times (sort of). In Tak3n, Mills' ex-wife Jean Grey is killed and he must go on the run from a slumming Forest Whitaker, eventually discovering that the whole thing was an evil plot by her new boyfriend, Stuart (the ever unlucky Dougray Scott). Why It's So Dumb: The Taken Trilogy is the ultimate divorced Dad fantasy. The first film shows how Bryan Mills really does know best for his daughter and is the only person who can save her from the big bad world, while the second sees her mature into the exact person he wants her to be. But it's the third that clinches it, proving mad-cap fantasies that not only does his ex still have feelings for him, but that her new fella is as insidious as he always suspected. It's a pretty sickening, overt message, although to focus on that misses the bigger picture; Taken doesn't need a twist. At its heart it's a fast-paced actioner with a sixty year old breaking bones and shouldn't really need narrative upheaval to have us talking about it at the year's end.
