Movie Reviews: New in Town, Taken, The Uninvited

TAKEN is one dumped-in-January film that’s better than it needs to be but, alas, still isn’t good enough. Retired from his job as an ass-kicking American operative to be closer to his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), Bryan (Liam Neeson) can only listen in horror when she calls from Paris while human traffickers abduct her. Directed by Pierre Morel, whose French hit District B13 only worked when its characters were pummeling and chasing each other, Taken tells a pretty standard not-my-child! revenge story concerning Bryan’s one-man mission to bust heads in the City of Light. As one would expect from Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen — the writing team behind the pleasingly ludicrous, pseudosophisticated Transporter series — the film gives action fans a few glimpses of picturesque international locales before the story gets down to the business of shooting, maiming and torturing vaguely foreign baddies. Neeson’s tormented weariness lends an air of dignity to the film’s pulpy, grubby nastiness, but as striking as he is in action-hero mode, the truth is that Taken doesn’t need dignity. It requires tongue-in-cheek machismo that mocks the story’s B-movie inanities while playing them to the hilt. What, was Jason Statham busy? (Citywide) (Tim Grierson)

UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS The original Underworld, released six years ago, introduced a high-concept/low-excitement war between vampires in fetish gear and video game–caliber werewolves — and “in the spirit of equanimity,” someone wrote at the time, “the movie both sucks and bites.” No such draw here: This deadly prequel explaining the roots of the bloodsucker-fangface grudge match is a 92-minute detainment in Sucksylvania. Like the first two movies, it’s too glum and humorless to wring any fun from its dorky premise: At least seven-eighths of this one takes place in a dreary, monochromatic castle, and much of that’s in a dungeon. Though he’s chained up with other “lycan” slaves, werewolf messiah Lucian (Michael Sheen) pursues a love that dare not howl its name with vampire princess Sonja (Rhona Mitra), while her aristocratic dad, Viktor (Bill Nighy), skulks around like a Balkan Ming the Merciless. In lieu of advancing a story, the third Underworld repeats incessantly — multiple bloody floggings, multiple captures, multiple trudges back to the dungeon — while the cinematography does its best to evoke the many-hued visual splendor of an ashtray. Mincing around like a bored old glam rocker and hissing threats from behind electric neon eyes, Nighy seems to be the only person on set who found a glint of amusement in his part. He fares better than poor Sheen, a scraggly Wolverine who made a more credible vampire-slayer opposite Frank Langella’s Nixon. (Citywide) (Jim Ridley)

THE UNINVITED Two weeks after the reach-out-and-touch gore of My Bloody Valentine in 3-D, the splatter-free teen chiller The Uninvited feels sweetly old-fashioned. Sixteen-year-old Anna (Emily Browning), who attempted suicide after her mother’s death, leaves a psych hospital and returns to the gorgeous Maine lake house of her novelist father (David Strathairn). Soon she’s visited by the decayed corpse of her mother, who warns Anna that her father’s new girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) is a murderer. A remake of the 2003 Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters,The Uninvited is a Hand That Rocks the Cradle–type thriller that’s been dressed up as a horror movie. For the most part, the mix works, although the film’s twist ending seemed to irritate a recent preview audience. We’ve seen it all before, but that doesn’t diminish the accomplishment of first-time directors (and brothers) Charles and Thomas Guard, who clearly believe that a creaking door is scarier than a gouged-out eyeball. Hats off to them, although one can’t help but wonder how the great Strathairn ended up in a teen-beat horror flick four years after his triumphant Best Actor Oscar nomination for Good Night, and Good Luck. In Hollywood, the horror never ends. (Citywide) (Chuck Wilson)