Rotten Tomatoes: 9% Liam Neeson must be laughing all the way to the bank. Having signed on to the original film only as a means to have a holiday, he's now got to the point where he could command $20 million for a role that demands precisely no range and little effort. He literally just has to be Liam Neeson. And despite the franchise being on the inevitable downward critical spiral, the box office returns have been significant enough to suggest there's still life in the brand. That's more than can be said of the script or the performances though, as a shamefully silly plot is populated by mostly boring characters while Neeson strides through the middle looking majestic and bad-ass and somehow not losing an ounce of credibility. But that's not to say there's any enjoyment factor here: even the old cliches of the first two films have lost their entitlement to good will, and they're cut down by the fact that this isn't so much a Taken film as a "Don't Piss Off Liam Neeson" film. Or the bones of one, anyway. So the appeal even to the most die-hard of Taken fans is severely tested.
