Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A mess of a movie, but enjoyable nonetheless.  Not as much Liam Neeson kick-assedry as I would have liked.  Don’t try to make sense of the plot.

There isn’t much that can said about “Taken 3”.  If you’ve seen the first two, you know what to expect.  If at all possible, the third in the trilogy has an even more absurd plot, but plots are secondary when you’re watching a movie like this.  This one, though, the absurdity of the plot gets in the way and, in some ways, enhances the enjoyment of the film.  This doesn’t put it in “so bad it’s good” territory, but it helps you keep a sense of humor about the movie you are watching.

One thing missing is an astronomical body count.  This is mostly because of the plot.  Much of ass-kickery in the movie is Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) escaping time and again from the police.  And if you’re a good guy, killing police is a big no-no unless said police are corrupt.  The police in the movie are shown as mostly bumbling incompetents except for Detective Franck Dotzler (Forest Whitaker) who is mostly useless except for his OCD habits and providing multiple opportunities to tell us how Mills is too smart for them.  There is quite the body count tally at the end but it’s more of a spree killing than a sustained bad-assedness campaign.  Then there are your unnecessary explosions, which I admit are cool even as you’re rolling your eyes at the over-the-topedness of the amount of flame and damage caused by a rolling car.

“Taken 3” is a movie that makes fun of itself.  At least, I hope that’s what they were doing.  The ending suggests to me that they were making fun of themselves the entire time, but it is really hard to tell.  My suggestion is to go into the movie assuming it’s true and it will make the movie more enjoyable.