There’s not much point in further analyzing the ignored possibilities for “Taken 3” . Perhaps all the filmmakers had to do to make their audience happy was shooting some decent action scenes, paste them with some interesting character development and maybe add some clever crime material as well. As it turns out, the Mills’ family early scenes are just there to move the plot along and they are all excruciating to endure (was there really a point in focusing so much time on Grace’s odd reaction upon getting a giant Panda from Bryan?) Additionally, most of Bryan’s actions are downright bewildering. Take for instance the scene where Grace stops at a convenience store on her way to school (leaving directly from her mother’s funeral, no less) for her daily peach yogurt and finds a note pasted on top of it telling her to swallow the drink right away. As it turns out it has been poisoned by Bryan and Grace becomes nauseous, forcing her to make a run to the school’s restroom where her father gives her an antidote and tells her he had go through this process so that they could meet there secretly. The question here is: why not simply leave the following note on the yogurt: “see you at the school restroom in 20 minutes”? The line between Bryan Mills’ genius intuition and total nonsense is thinner than ever in “Taken 3”.

We also have the film’s action scenes with shots that never last more than a full second, with the camera constantly moving in all directions. Even worse, there seem to be bits of film missing from the final cut, which I’m guessing were likely never shot. As a result, it is not only difficult to follow the proceedings as with most current action movies, it becomes impossible. Three days after seeing “Taken 3,” I still have no idea where the container that crashed the roof of a car came from, or how Neeson was able to leave the vehicle that fell into a precipice. There were moments when I simply gave up and decided to look away for sanity’s sake. The same applies to Dougray Scott’s Americanized accent in the role of Lenny’s current husband. He sounds as if his mouth is full of marbles (think Colin Firth at the beginning of “The King’s Speech”), and, at times, it is nearly impossible to understand him. I also think it was a mistake for the filmmakers to come up with a twist ending where he turns out to be the villain, considering he is the kind of actor most likely to be cast as one to begin with (much like Sean Bean usually is).

It would seem that when the original “Taken” came out five years ago, Liam Neeson discovered a personal niche in the action movie realm with a better lead than it probably deserves. And yet, every entry from this period has had some wildly illogical traits that somehow only serve to enhance my fondness for them. Consider “Unknown” (2011) where Neeson develops the typical movie amnesia where a character can only remember memories relevant to the plot and where he recalls a pivotal picture of his past from the point of view of the person who shot it, instead of his, the one who posed for it. Then there’s “Non-Stop” (2013), in which the villain asks for a multimillion dollar ransom to defuse a bomb aboard the same airplane where he is currently traveling. Whatever their peculiarities, these are films that I’ve eagerly gone to the theater to see but by agreeing to make the incompetent “Taken 3” the tagline “It ends here” may very well be applying to Neeson’s action star days. He’s finally given us pause when considering whether or not to attend the ones that may follow, on good faith alone.

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