When will criminals learn to leave Liam Neeson alone? As Taken 2 illustrated, the lesson illustrated in Taken was well illustrated: human traffickers are no match for Neeson’s temper. If these fools insist on trifling with this (particularly) surly Irishman, they will only end up with a screwdriver in the skull to go with the vengeance in their hearts. I mean screwdriver in the figurative sense of course, because it’ll actually be a hammer.
Now there’s talk of a Taken 3, which took everyone outside the accounting department by surprise. Still, we wondered what was possibly left for these covetous rapscallions to take that would send Neeson over the edge.
So we came up with a few options.
The Population of Red Bank, New Jersey
So taking his daughter didn’t work, and then taking his ex-wife proved equally unsuccessful. Clearly the problem here is not one of ethics, but of ambition. The reason those first two ploys failed is that the traffickers lacked a grander vision. Instead of bothering with a one or two person abduction, why not steal an entire small town?
In true Carmen Sandiego fashion, the crooks will fly a giant cartoon helicopter over Red Bank, New Jersey, attach comically large hooks to the town limits, and fly away with their 12, 218-person quarry (according to a 2011 census). That would really make Liam Neeson angry. Why, you ask? Because Neeson happens to be the world’s biggest Count Basie fan and would not take kindly to seeing someone abscond with his hero’s hometown.
Your Mom
Like many of you, we found ourselves struggling for breath during the suspenseful moments of Taken. This shortness of breath similarly occurred during the screening of Taken 2, but that was only because we were replaying Taken again in our heads the entire time. In any event, if the quest to recover a duck-waddling, thirty-something teenage girl you didn’t know produced such an affective response, imagine how you will react when the Albanian baddies kidnap…your mom.
That’s right, Taken 3, in an absolute marvel of the interactive movie-going experience, will have human traffickers going from town to town snatching mothers from their beds as they sleep like the worst sort of reverse Santa Claus. It will then be up to Liam Neeson to investigate and solve millions of abductions one after another as a film crew follows his every move. We literally can’t conceive of a singe problem with this idea.
A Lunch Meeting
If the villains of this franchise were smart, they would note that it’s really the genre in which these films reside that afford Neeson his monumental advantage. In an action sequence, no matter how many bullets you fire or punches you throw, Neeson is going to artfully separate you from your larynx and send you hastily off the mortal coil. So in part three, we propose the kidnappers take Neeson . . . out of his comfort zone and invite him to a fancy restaurant for a My Dinner with Andre type dialogue.
While they swap semi-interesting life anecdotes in an attempt to arrive at the reason for being even though their over-privileged lives make them blind to the inherently limited scope of their world view, the Albanians’ confederates could go abduct, I don’t know, the president or something.
The caveat for this plan is that you must be certain that Liam’s meal be prepared to his exact specifications. You can take a great many things, but never should Neeson’s food allergies be taken for granted. Should even a hint of cumin be found in his soup, he will shoot, stab, and/or waterboard everyone in the restaurant.
Liam Neeson’s Video Game Collection
What? You don’t think Liam Neeson is a gamer? What exactly would “a very particular set of skills” refer to if not “the ability to reach the Burger Time kill screen?” In a totally Dude, Just Not Cool move by the Albanians, Neeson’s entire video game collection is stolen. Everything from Krull for Atari to Darkman on NES to Schindler’s List for the Sega Genesis is seized in a daring early morning raid. Neeson would still be slumbering after his all-night marathon of Tekken and Tekken 2.
In fact, we propose that, due to the shock to his already fragile psyche, Liam Neeson spends the entirety of Taken 3 dressed like a character from Tekken 3; perhaps we learn that his character’s name all along was Bryan “Fury” Mills. Makes sense, right? One thing is for sure, there will be no joy in the stick with which these heinous culprits will be beaten to death.
The Rec Center
If there is one thing that makes Liam Neeson angry, it’s everything. If there are two things that make Liam Neeson angry it’s everything and some rich snob shutting down the rec center.
Just before his daughter and her break-dancing troupe are about to compete in the National Dance-Off (Middle-aged Teenager Division), a wealthy Albanian developer comes in and buys the land on which the local rec center is built. He’s taking away their only practice facility just to drill for a valuable natural resource: white girls. Neeson must combine the ferocity he displayed in Taken 2 with the sweet street moves of Breakin’ 2 in order save that rec center.
He will downrock and windmill his way to victory and even execute a couple of headspins…which is of course what he calls breakin’ people’s necks with his bare hands. They flirted with this concept when conceiving of Taken 2, until they realized that “Electric Boogaloo” is precisely what he did to that guy strapped to the chair in the first movie.
What do you think they should steal from Bryan Mills in Taken 3?
