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★½☆☆☆
24 September 2011
This article is a review of ABDUCTION. |
“I hate balloons,” Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver).
“Summer was summer,” Nathan (Taylor Lautner) to Karen (Lily Collins).
That’s the kind of dialogue in this movie. From the opening party where Nathan’s friend is set up as someone who can create fake IDs, I was worried. The trailer made this look like it might be the junior BOURNE IDENTITY. It wasn’t. Director John Singleton has churned out another dud. It’s hard to believe it is 20 years since he made the influential BOYZ N THE HOOD. Call me an eternal optimist, but I keep hoping he will deliver on that promise.
“Summer was summer,” Nathan (Taylor Lautner) to Karen (Lily Collins).
That’s the kind of dialogue in this movie. From the opening party where Nathan’s friend is set up as someone who can create fake IDs, I was worried. The trailer made this look like it might be the junior BOURNE IDENTITY. It wasn’t. Director John Singleton has churned out another dud. It’s hard to believe it is 20 years since he made the influential BOYZ N THE HOOD. Call me an eternal optimist, but I keep hoping he will deliver on that promise.
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After the party Nathan wakes up hung-over without his top – a little something for his fans – and father Kevin (the gravitas-bringing Jason Isaacs) decides to have a sparring match to punish him for being that wasted. It’s actually a funny scene, portraying a bond in a rare moment of deft shorthand. And the family stuff, including mother Mara (Maria Bello, who should be in more films), has chemistry – well at least between the adults. Lautner is the weak link. The TWILIGHT movies are not aimed at me I know, but to quote Julianne Moore in CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE, “The new Twilight movie… was so bad”. I thought at least Lautner appeared to have some latent acting ability. His performance here dispels that supposition. He is incredibly wooden, just doing his sullen thing. There’s no spark, little charisma. Keanu Reeves may not be able to act, but at least he has the latter.
Using a lot of Apple products (an iMac, two MacBook Pros and an iPad), Nathan discovers he’s adopted. Before being able to process this bombshell, his family is killed by assassins. Oh yeah, and Karen hands Nathan a fireplace poker to help him torture one of the killers to find out what’s going on. I was torn between thinking this girl is unflinchingly cool, to WTF! Teenagers torturing, and this has a 12A rating. There is a level of sadism to ABDUCTION that doesn’t sit right in this, admittedly dark, teen caper – probably because the two leads are just so unfazed, there’s no introspection or analysis; contrast Matt Damon’s soul searching in his landmark spy franchise. Lautner’s acting doesn’t help, not to hammer the point; Collins is better though, demonstrating some range. And also back to the awful script. This is like a charmless teen NORTH BY NORTHWEST, with them running around America trying to uncover a conspiracy in which they have unwittingly wandered. It’s not as epic as that sounds though.
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