The Foreigner

Tell me the names!

When Quan (Jackie Chan) loses his last family member to a random bombing, he decides to hunt down the perpetrators himself. Not the most unique of premises, but the method he takes to do so is interesting.

The acting is ok across the board and I didn't mind all the accents but the highlights are definitely the action pieces. Unfortunately there aren't that many of those. The plot also has holes with numerous filler scenes, especially near the start.

This poster almost has more action than the movie.

The Foreigner is an alright flick, but not one I can recommend to anyone other than Jackie Chan fans as the Taken series does a similar story, better. I give the Foreigner 2 IEDs out of 5, and am in no rush to watch it again.

Double Neeson: Run all Night and Non Stop

Run all Night

An estranged father has one night to mend bridges with his kid. And kill all the bad guys.

Liam Neeson is an aging and retired hit man who happens to be best friends with mob boss Ed Harris. Unfortunately the sons of these two guys get into dispute and ultimately force them to fight each other because, hey - it's more entertaining that way, and way more violent. Liam is back in his "Taken" level of skill which is fantastic as he tries to protect his unappreciative kid. It's a simple enough story backed by good actors and good camera shots.

Get off my lawn.

Is it too simple a story though? I literally summarized the entire film in those few sentences, so maybe. You can also expect the mandatory car chase sequence and bad guys with terrible aim as per usual. Still worth a watch for Liam fans or action buffs though. I give it three people in the wrong place at the wrong time out of five and wouldn't mind watching it again.

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Non-Stop

Every 20 minutes, someone dies. And 20 minutes goes fast with editing! :P

Liam Neeson finds himself on a plane that is being hijacked by a very sneaky bastard. Can he find the bad guy in time before something bad happens!? The story is pretty simple and surprisingly clean in this one, despite how tricky the "who is the bad guy" aspect tries to be - and there are quite a few people to keep the audience guessing for the majority of the flick. I also quite like that almost the entire movie takes place on a plane, and that the actors all around fit their parts well. Also good to see Corey Stoll in something outside the Strain (a series I quite enjoy).

Dr. Goodweather taking a break from strigoi...

I do have to raise a point about the questionable physics towards the end, but since most of the science breaking stuff is bundled up in a small pile towards the end and goes by pretty fast I can almost look past it. Almost. Unfortunately due to the thriller aspect I can't really say more than that without giving anything away so I'll wrap up here. I quite enjoyed this film and would definitely watch it again. For any action fans, or Neeson fans, or Taken fans you will probably enjoy this film too. All up I give it three airplanes out of five.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

The boring version of Taken.

Liam Neeson is back as a private investigator trying with an alcohol troubled past who is convinced to help some criminals catch other criminals who are hacking up their loved ones. There's a fair bit of sleuthing around and talking and not a lot of fighting / gun play which makes the story move a little slowly. Also, the body count again is quite low (for me) and Liam spends most of the time talking his way out of fights (which would make more sense).

So... I literally just walk around for most of this film? Screw that.

(My version of what should have happened: Walking Away from the Stupid Movie)

My problems with the film are Liam's filler "sidekick" who is quite irritating, that there are lots of stupid people who fail their observation checks (except for Liam), and the fact that the "victim" criminals don't want to call the police for assistance. That just shows to me the "victims" care more about themselves than the actual "victims" and aren't worth helping in my book. Anywho its a "meh" story, not one I want to see again, and I give it one shot glass out of five.

You should give this a skip and instead watch Unknown or even better, the Taken series which I believe are much better movies of a similar type.

Unknown

A case of stolen identity.

Liam Neeson arrives in Berlin with his wife to attend a conference but due to a pretty bad plot device of forgetting a bag at the airport, he gets into an accident and subsequently finds out that his identity has been taken by someone else AND to make things worse is no longer recognized by his wife! It's pretty tough to be in a foreign country without an ID and it only gets worse for him from there.

Apart from that first silliness with the bag, the rest of the plot is actually fantastic and the CGI effects are again at a low, relying on the more risky stunt people and cars routine which is much better for the realism factor of the tale. It's a good mix of action and suspense which I can easily recommend to everyone, and while he's not as murderous as his Taken counterpart, Liam here is still fun to watch. I give this movie three and a half forgotten bags out of five and wouldn't mind watching it a second time.

Taken and Taken 2

[Post #24 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

I had the pleasure of watching these movies back to back so I thought I'd review them both in one hit. Taken tells the story of a stupid girl who manages to get herself kidnapped by some very bad Albanians. Unfortunately for them, a borderline obsessive and sadistically psychopatic Liam Neeson is quite attached to her and happens to be excellent at tracking down scum and making them suffer.

While my summary might be brief, it is an awesome to watch Liam's character on the hunt. There are a few intentionally annoying characters, but they all get their comeuppance during the course of the film. There are also very good action sequences and plausible enough gun play (though there's a bad guy at the end who must have been drunk to have missed someone of the protagonist's size with an automatic weapon).

He does benefit from some good luck too.

Taken 2 continues the story where the relatives of the Albanians killed in the first movie are out for revenge, so they do the logical thing and try to kidnap the protagonist and his entire family. Of course this doesn't quite go as planned as Liam's kill count just keeps going up. Fewer annoying characters this time around, replaced by a truck load of stunt men and women on narrow roads during chase scenes. The combat here is also pretty good, though the bad guys are hampered somewhat by occasionally not using lethal force (the perils of capture missions).

Both movies do have plot holes, mainly dealing with "how the hell do you kill so many people or throw grenades into public areas and not get arrested," sort of thing but they are easily overlooked with the enjoyment factor while watching. I give Taken four bullets out of five and Taken 2 three and a half bullets out of five - slightly less than the first movie because I felt the plot wasn't as tight, but still very enjoyable. 

Blaugust Bonus: I don't really have a strong urge to travel to see the world, so instead I might just talk about another of Belghast's writing prompts today -  "What is your favorite game biome? Games often have the same kinds of generic climates spread through the zones and levels. What is your favorite type of climate and why?"

An environment that's pretty is common place these days, which is why I'm picking a strange one - an environment that puts the player on edge is my current favorite. I am talking about the infested ships circling Eris in Warframe, especially the hive missions there where you (and your team if you have one) are sent to eradicate the infestation spawning pools on warped and partially broken space vessels. Ok, more than partially as you have sections where there is no atmosphere and you take constant damage while on your space walk. Of course, the endless swarm of aberrant creatures have no problem with it.

If you aren't outside running out of breath then you are in the claustrophobic, twisted maze of broken metal melding into the disgusting infestated biomass of growths and tumors. Bodies of the previous inhabitants can be found here too, and the blood curdling violin music helps set the scene nicely. No, it's not a pretty place. It's not even a nice place to visit, but it is one of the best "horror" setups I've run into which perfectly fit thematically to the game.