15 Terrible Movies That Actually Improve Good Ones
4. Unknown Improves Taken
The Bad
As most of you know, late in his career Liam Neeson ignited the O.A.P. action hero genre. We had seen him throat chop his way to save his daughter in Taken and on the back of that film's success, Unknown was marketed as a similarly enjoyable affair.
Instead, Unknown hardly featured any of the fist-throwing exploits we had come to expect. It was a damn dirty lie.
A seemingly clever twist turned out to be embarrassingly obvious in the end and though Liam Neeson is as reliable as ever in it, Unknown was both miss-marketed and overall rather vapid.
How It Improves Taken
Neeson's first outing as 'best dad in world', O.A.P. action hero Brian Mills in Taken is his magnum opus, at least where his action films are concerned anyway.
Everyone remembers his gravelly speech that adorned the film's poster and later on became an eventually tedious meme. Such a change in pace for an actor so deep into his career is incredibly rare, but Neeson proved he was more than capable of keeping up with the likes of Bourne or Bond in the ass-kicking stakes.
The expectations aimed at Unknown no doubt added to the disappointment but you can't help but groan every time Neeson gets out of a seemingly intense situation without hitting anyone.