2014's been a great year for film, with your usual dose of superhero movies and plenty of critically acclaimed flicks (The Grand Budapest Hotel and Snowpiercer among my favourites), and if you've seen my list of movies to look forward to this year, you'll know how madly excited I am for what's being released in the next 12 months. Though if that list had an honourable mention section, Taken 3 (or Tak3n as advertised) would have been in it, as I enjoyed the first Taken and the talented Liam Neeson, who has since become a very bankable actor in recent years. Though expectations were low after the the repetitive Taken 2 (its director, Olivier Megaton, returns for this installment), I could not have thought it'll get any worse with Taken 3 Tak3n, and my first review of 2015 starting right off with this sorry stinker.

Before we begin, let's recap on what each installment has been. In the first Taken, it was a breath of fresh air, beginning the trend of having a veteran actor fighting past hordes of European thugs, and proving to be financially yet critically successful. The second Taken was a carbon copy of the original but still enjoyable to some degree (and money-making to boot). The third and final installment then attempts to rejuvenate itself by heading towards a new direction in terms of story... by not having anyone get 'TAKEN' this time around. Sounds familiar? The Taken franchise has just followed The Hangover's Guide to How Not to Make a Franchise. While The Hangover Part III was simply unwatchable and atrociously boring throughout, Taken 3 Tak3n is no different.

Even after saying in 2012 that there would not be a another sequel, Liam Neeson's back to the role that has made him an action star in the first place (with a cool $20 million paycheck in tow), and after trudging through even more faceless Eastern European mobsters (they're Russians and not Albanians this time, including a mob boss who looks like a ginger Jim Carrey and attacks in only his white undies), it's evidenced that he's bored to bits already and is probably 'too old for this sh*t' by now. But even his lowered enthusiasm does not compare with  his cast members, save for Maggie Grace. 

From what's been said of online, Taken 3 Tak3n treads very similarly with the Harrison Ford-starring The Fugitive, whereby a man with a particular set of skills is on the run after being accused for murder, and at the same time is being pursued by a clever sleuth played by Tommy Lee Jones. Here, the sleuth role is played by Forest Whitaker, and while he's a nice addition to the movie, his character feels dumbed down as his role in the film only consists of following Bryan's every step and musing over warm bagels. A waste of talent really, considering that the filmmakers could have injected some extra starpower to this mostly one-man vehicle.

Returning to the fore are also Bryan's daughter and ex-wife, played once again by Maggie Grace and Famke Janssen respectively. Grace, now 31, plays the oldest-looking teenager ever, and returns to being a damsel in distress even after showing in Taken 2 that she's pretty capable of scaling tall buildings and chucking grenades. Like Forest Whitaker, Grace's character is wasted, and it's felt that there has been no family development since the end of the first movie, even for a movie so hell bent on emphasizing the importance of family.

Speaking of development, Megaton brought back a previous character by introducing Lenore's current husband Stuart back in Taken 3 Tak3n. Quick fact: the role of Stuart is played by different actors in Taken 1 and 3, with Xander Berkeley in the former and a younger Dougary Scott (a Scotsman!) in the latter.  The change in actor still does not change the fact that Stuart's character is very one-dimensional, despite the story trying its hardest to sell him as a complicated and important character.

Each scene, seemingly pieced and cobbled together from various non-relating scenes, makes the already predictable plot line entangled in a web of continuation issues, such as when Bryan pops up at the mountainside or a morgue with no explanation beforehand, and a random waterboarding interrogation scene midway through the film. The fight choreography, often the main selling point in this Neeson beat-em-up franchise, had so many shifting frame angles and shaky cams, you'll start to believe that each scene was filmed with a thousand and one cameras around it, and it's proving to be an eyesore. The writers' (Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) attempts to create both a twisted and suspenseful story also falls flat as the result only brought out a fairly generic action story, and the main villain was for all to see within the first 15 minutes, even the loss of a certain character was oddly revealed early on in the trailers.

As Taken 1 established Bryan as a skillful man with something to lose, Taken 3 Tak3n instead leads us to believe that he's now a living Terminator, miraculously avoiding car explosions and making convenient escapes time after time. What's more unbelievable was the horrible CGI from this $48 million budgeted movie, with a notable standout being an extremely fake freight trailer rollicking around a highway for no reason. The film even jokingly tries to lampoon itself by recycling memorable quotes from the original Taken, as everyone ends up saying "I will find you, and I will kill you" somewhere along the film's two hour runtime.

The Taken franchise has definitely ran its course this time around, and if they do make a fourth installment (fingers crossed that they don't), I do hope that Fox get rid of Olivier Megaton and maybe pair Neeson up again with director Jaume Collet-Serra, as I have rather enjoyed the pair's collaborations such as Unknown and Non-Stop. Both were pretty good flicks, though they don't hold a candle against the original Taken (directed by Pierre Morel), but I am sure that whatever they churn out will be miles better than this poor excuse of an action thriller. Like The Hangover, it's a disappointing end to a franchise that shouldn't be franchised in the first place.