Taken 4 Stars

What would happen if Jason Bourne's dad became a Man on Fire like Denzel Washington? Taken would happen. The movie is amazing. It would have been 5 stars if there where one change to the film. Since it is set in France, Jean Claude Van Damme should have had a major role in the movie as a bad guy. That would have been dope. The casting of Liam Neeson as the hero was perfect though. For a movie like this you need someone like Liam Neeson or Wesley Snipes, no one else would do.

I told some dude to watch this movie and he said that he was not interested because Liam Neeson is not dope. Incredulously I axed him if he had seen Darkman, which I already knew the answer was no because he obviously would not have made the first statment had he seen Sam Raimi's second best film ever. I asked the question so that he would have to bear full responsibility for what was about to happen to him. He knew that pain was coming and he winced, preparing for a slap to the soup cooler, as he said "uh, nah dude I missed Darkman." I did not hit the man in the mouth, I decided to flip the script and kick him in his third eye and paralyze his legs.

Taken is great for many other reasons than just Liam Neeson. There are too few movies where dudes who know Karate torture French Alabanian perverts and then kill them. I dont dig torture movies like Saw and Hostel, who wants to see innocent people get all jacked up? But terrorists, pedophiles, kidnappers, traitors, rats.... all these are game for torture. Big ups to whoever greenlight Taken, it is a movie with balls.

Terminator Salvation 2 Stars

I finished this just to see if it could turn itself around. I was wrong, it started ok then progressively slipped into mediocrity then into down right ridiculousness. The original Terminator falls into the category described as Hella Dope, the sequels do not. Most people who where happy in 1984 when they went to the video store and rented a movie called Terminator just because the dude from Conan was on the box with shades and a gun will know what I mean. My brother and I were those people, chances are there are more of you out there. People like us want to see the war between man and machines in Terminator Salvation. People like us want to see John Connor teach Reese how to "Smash those metal motherfuckers into junk" like he said in the original. Instead we get another installment of the machines coming up with a more advanced Terminator who still fails to kill a teenage kid and erase the existence of their nemesis. Another good movie whose legacy is destroyed by summer lacklusters with bad dialogue and rappers in the cast. Beside Chrisitan Bale, the actors are bad.

Common is in this movie.

Michael Ironside is in this movie.

The machines want to kill Reese as a teenager in the film. They have the technology to track him down in L.A. The technology to identify him with facial recognition software, where they got his image in the first place is beyond me considering it is post apocalypse. It is not like the dude took a drivers test and got a state issued ID. If you have his image, that means you have seen him before. Why did they not kill him then? Oh that is right, that would make sense and there would be no summer movie. My bad. Anyway, they have the technology to travel back in time, yet they lack the foresight to kill Reese immediatley when they capture him. Kill Reese and John Connor does not exist, right? But that plan is too simple, insteadthe machines keep him alive so they can lure the one guy who can kill them all into their lair so they can send ONE cgi Arnold Schwarzenegger to fight him naked. That is a good plan.

Oh yeah, and when they do kill John Connor by spiking him through the heart the Deus Ex Machina will arrive in the form of a good terminator who actually has a heart to spare. Nice