“Taken”
Sat., December 14, 11:58 AM
Steven Spielberg presents “Taken.” That’s how it was identified – so that it sounded like someone talking about himself in the third person. “Steven Spielberg presents ‘Taken’ will return after these messages.” “Steven Spielberg presents ‘Taken’ is brought to you by…” So l’empress will tell you how she liked “Steven Spielberg presents ‘Taken.’”
As a matter of fact, I liked it – a lot. I want to see it again, but I’m not going to try to follow all twenty hours on television this weekend. If I can’t read the story, I’ll wait for the video. I need the family tree in front of me while I’m reading or watching.
The title refers to people who have been “kidnapped” or who have – somehow – visited alien spacecraft. What if they really have? It’s a great premise for a story. This story follows three different families who are affected by the visiting aliens. Their experiences aren’t the same, but their tales are intertwined.
Part of my problem was in the casting. So many of the characters looked the same that it was often difficult to tell which family we were with. (And it didn’t help to have the phone ring while I was trying to figure it out.) Each episode was repeated once that day – too late for me to stay up – and again the next day before the new episode. Sometimes re-watching clarified it for me. But not only did central characters look alike – like Lisa and Mary – but new actors to portray aging characters didn’t always look as they should. Most confusing was that the actor portraying Jesse’s son looked more like Jacob – and they weren’t even related!
I’m not telling you who these characters actually were, because I hope you will get to see it yourself. There’s some character development, as good guys turn into bad guys and vice versa – people are seldom all one thing. There’s mystery – are the aliens here to help us or destroy us? I was more frightened by the lack of compassion among the humans than I was by the little gray beings.
It really wasn’t necessary to stretch this story to twenty hours, and I could see extraneous material that I probably would have left out. At least two gratuitous sex scenes left me cold and did not add to the story line at all. If they hadn’t broken it up so much, it would have been unnecessary to keep reminding the audience of what had transpired previously. I’ll bet they could have done this in five days instead of ten, using three-hour episodes. (Kind of like the first “Star Trek” movie, which would have made a good one-hour TV episode instead of a movie with long boring inserts.)
Nevertheless, I liked it. Which means that I approve the ending, sad as it was. “You have to keep on asking questions, even if there are no answers.” I’ll accept that quote; nothing you ever learn is wasted.
