Maybe it was all that fur and shirtlessness…I don’t know how I was fooled so badly. In the Twilight film series while he was no Marlon Brando, werewolf Taylor Lautner did a decent job. After seeing him lay an egg in the John Singleton (2 Fast 2 Furious, Boyz in the Hood) action film Abduction I’m beginning to think that maybe he should stick to baying at the moon.
I’m not being cruel. What was cruel was making me sit through 106 minutes of the film. While shifting uncomfortably (due to what was going on on the screen) in my seat I found myself fighting the urge to leave the theatre. And that is something I NEVER do. I am the type of movie watcher who can and has taken all kinds of crappy films with a smile on my face but this one had me close to my breaking point.
This is an unabashed attempt to cash in on Lautner’s Twilight following. It takes less than ten minutes for him to have his shirt off and it is not the last time we see his buff upper body for no particular reason. If that was the film’s only flaw then I could have handled it. The cheesy, clichéd dialogue and wooden acting by the two young leads pushed it over the edge into Crapville.
Usually action films are forgiving when it comes to actors and acting skills. For God’s sake, Tom Cruise has made some decent action films. Jean-Claude Van Damme. I can go on. But even in this sheltered environment Taylor Lautner’s acting limitations are very obvious. He is like a one trick pony. Actually more accurately he is a one look (brooding) actor. And he tries to milk it for all its worth. All movie long. Ugh! I guess he thought he made millions of dollars doing it throughout the Twilight films so why change. I’m here to beg him to change.
His character finds out that the two people he called Mom (Maria Bello – History of Violence, The Company of Men) and Dad (Jason Isaacs – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Patriot) are not his parents. After finding that out, confronting his Mom and then seeing two hitmen brutally murder them he finds out that his father is in the Black Ops section of the CIA and that he has stolen some information from a freelancing agent (Michael Nyqvist – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) who desperately wants it back. Nathan (Lautner) is now on the run with his cute nextdoor neighbour Karen (Lily Collins – The Blind Side, Priest) and doesn’t know who he can trust.
B-Movie (verging on F, if there is such a thing) is the best thing you can say about Abduction. Even the action, which I thought might save things a little, is fake looking. No matter how many times a person gets kicked or punched no one in the film bleeds. Even those shot bleed minimally. Stunts were weak and the scenery was so fake I actually laughed out loud on several occasions.
Even Singleton’s attempt to cash in on the oodles of young girls who find Taylor the cutest thing on two legs does not work. The amorous scene between him and Collins on a train is not hot at all and just left me feeling like a Peeping Tom. I was uncomfortable not turned on.
Here’s to hoping that the millions of Twilight films won’t be fooled into going to the film because Lautner is in it. Read this review. Talk to other people who have seen it before plunking down your money.
