Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense violence and action, brief language, some sexual content and teen partying
Cast: Taylor Lautner, Alfred Molina, Antonique Smith, Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Sigourney Weaver, Lily Collins
Director: John Singleton
"Abduction" is a movie on life-support. The filmmakers are trying with maddening desperation to take the material seriously, when the material itself is begging (and I mean begging) to be ridiculed.
Or at least moderately self-mocking. Or just fast-paced throughout. There's one scene that does work. It occurs as the villain's henchmen arrive at the doorstep of the young hero's suburban home, break-in through the front door and assault his mother. With little hesitation, both mother and father immediately unload a torrent of punches, kicks, head-butts and we see they are no ordinary parents. It's a skillfully staged action scene that, for one mere moment anyway, made me sit up and take notice. Unfortunately, the sleep-inducing scenes leading up to that and the ones scattered about sporadically after managed to suck any potential enjoyment I might have taken from the experience.
The movie stars Taylor Lautner as Nathan, a high school outcast (uh-huh) who feels like he's been living someone else's life. It's hard for him to explain, but his parents feel like total strangers to him, he has bouts of uncontrollable rage, and is tormented by recurring nightmares involving a woman singing him a lullaby before her demise. Could his parents be impostors? Nathan meets regularly with a shrink (Sigourney Weaver) who offers up some strange advice that flies in the face of conventional psychoanalysis (hmmm) and to top it all off, he's too shy to make a move on his cute neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins).
One night, while working on a school assignment together, Karen comes across a website that gives vital information on missing children and has an age-enhancement feature. To his shock, one of the missing children, when aged, looks exactly like Nathan. The coincidences are simply too strange to ignore. He badgers his mother (Maria Bello) to come clean, and she finally confesses that she and his father (Jason Isaacs) are indeed not his real parents. Of course, soon after comes the aforementioned assault which sends both Nathan and Karen on the run. They find themselves pursued by a foreign special ops assassin (Michael Nyqvist) and a tenacious CIA agent (Alfred Molina), both of whom are seeking the same thing. Nathan's life can only be retained by solving the mystery surrounding his very existence.
The screenplay by Shawn Christensen has its share of flaws, but the bigger problem is that an action thriller with a seventeen-year-old protagonist is an awfully hard sell... even for a member of the "Twilight" cast. The only way a movie like this can work is if the pedal is kept firmly pressed to the floor. Director John Singleton is a competent action movie technician. His mistake here is slowing the pace in an apparent effort to make a Serious Drama and focus on a teen romance better served in Twilight-land. Decelerating the pace gives us time to ponder such implausibilities as how the protagonists are able to trek from Virginia to Nebraska to Pennsylvania in the span of a single afternoon. Or how the hero arranged to have a loaded pistol smuggled into a major league baseball stadium and taped to the bottom of a seat, and how the villain managed to swipe it from an adjacent seat even as his hands never left his lap. Or how the movie is called "Abduction" when there is no abduction in the film. At all.
I have nothing against Taylor Lautner, but I doubt he'll ever be associated with a vast acting range. He does what he can. Lily Collins follows up her role as the plucky sister in "The Blind Side" with her role as the plucky damsel-in-distress in "Priest" and plays the plucky sidekick here. The road to typecasting is shorter than actors realize. Sigourney Weaver embodies her role like someone who knows the material isn't working. She has a verbal exchange late in the movie that is truly painful to watch. I felt bad for her. Alfred Molina comes off the least scathed, if only because he has a knack for being able to sell the unsellable.
Singleton has gone from helming powerful dramas that clearly originated in his heart and soul ("Boyz 'n the Hood," "Poetic Justice") to directing more modest action pics ("2 Fast 2 Furious"). "Abduction" seems like an attempt to bridge the two. He wants to take this material more seriously than it deserves. I hope he finds his way back to projects that ignite his passion. He does that with his next effort and I'll gladly eat every word written here.
* 1/2 out of * * * * stars
Or at least moderately self-mocking. Or just fast-paced throughout. There's one scene that does work. It occurs as the villain's henchmen arrive at the doorstep of the young hero's suburban home, break-in through the front door and assault his mother. With little hesitation, both mother and father immediately unload a torrent of punches, kicks, head-butts and we see they are no ordinary parents. It's a skillfully staged action scene that, for one mere moment anyway, made me sit up and take notice. Unfortunately, the sleep-inducing scenes leading up to that and the ones scattered about sporadically after managed to suck any potential enjoyment I might have taken from the experience.
The movie stars Taylor Lautner as Nathan, a high school outcast (uh-huh) who feels like he's been living someone else's life. It's hard for him to explain, but his parents feel like total strangers to him, he has bouts of uncontrollable rage, and is tormented by recurring nightmares involving a woman singing him a lullaby before her demise. Could his parents be impostors? Nathan meets regularly with a shrink (Sigourney Weaver) who offers up some strange advice that flies in the face of conventional psychoanalysis (hmmm) and to top it all off, he's too shy to make a move on his cute neighbor, Karen (Lily Collins).
One night, while working on a school assignment together, Karen comes across a website that gives vital information on missing children and has an age-enhancement feature. To his shock, one of the missing children, when aged, looks exactly like Nathan. The coincidences are simply too strange to ignore. He badgers his mother (Maria Bello) to come clean, and she finally confesses that she and his father (Jason Isaacs) are indeed not his real parents. Of course, soon after comes the aforementioned assault which sends both Nathan and Karen on the run. They find themselves pursued by a foreign special ops assassin (Michael Nyqvist) and a tenacious CIA agent (Alfred Molina), both of whom are seeking the same thing. Nathan's life can only be retained by solving the mystery surrounding his very existence.
The screenplay by Shawn Christensen has its share of flaws, but the bigger problem is that an action thriller with a seventeen-year-old protagonist is an awfully hard sell... even for a member of the "Twilight" cast. The only way a movie like this can work is if the pedal is kept firmly pressed to the floor. Director John Singleton is a competent action movie technician. His mistake here is slowing the pace in an apparent effort to make a Serious Drama and focus on a teen romance better served in Twilight-land. Decelerating the pace gives us time to ponder such implausibilities as how the protagonists are able to trek from Virginia to Nebraska to Pennsylvania in the span of a single afternoon. Or how the hero arranged to have a loaded pistol smuggled into a major league baseball stadium and taped to the bottom of a seat, and how the villain managed to swipe it from an adjacent seat even as his hands never left his lap. Or how the movie is called "Abduction" when there is no abduction in the film. At all.
I have nothing against Taylor Lautner, but I doubt he'll ever be associated with a vast acting range. He does what he can. Lily Collins follows up her role as the plucky sister in "The Blind Side" with her role as the plucky damsel-in-distress in "Priest" and plays the plucky sidekick here. The road to typecasting is shorter than actors realize. Sigourney Weaver embodies her role like someone who knows the material isn't working. She has a verbal exchange late in the movie that is truly painful to watch. I felt bad for her. Alfred Molina comes off the least scathed, if only because he has a knack for being able to sell the unsellable.
Singleton has gone from helming powerful dramas that clearly originated in his heart and soul ("Boyz 'n the Hood," "Poetic Justice") to directing more modest action pics ("2 Fast 2 Furious"). "Abduction" seems like an attempt to bridge the two. He wants to take this material more seriously than it deserves. I hope he finds his way back to projects that ignite his passion. He does that with his next effort and I'll gladly eat every word written here.
* 1/2 out of * * * * stars
