
That ‘Taken’ TV Series Gets a Trailer With Guns and Punching and a Slowed-Down Cover Song
Posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2016 by Jacob Hall
The chief appeal of the Taken movies wasn’t the action (it was pretty good at best) and it certainly wasn’t any kind of nuanced storytelling. The reason Taken was a hit, the reason the first film is still a damn good movie eight years later, the reason they were able to squeeze two far inferior sequels out of a barebones premise, is Liam Neeson. When Bryan Mills (or as I like to call him, John Taken) monologues about his specific set of skills, Neeson does something that most action heroes cannot: he makes you believe that he is actually capable of the carnage he is about to wreak. Neeson’s weary, no-bullshit performance is the reason these movies every worked in the first place.
So when you watch the trailer for NBC’s new Taken television series, there should be one question bouncing around your brain: can Taken really be Taken without Liam Neeson?