Brian's Review - Abduction (2011)

Somebody abducted the good writing here. All of it.

Released: 2011
Genre(s): Action, Drama

Taylor Lautner has become a household name over the past few years, thanks to his role in "The Twilight Saga" movies - a set of films that apparently makes him contractually obligated to burst out of his shirt randomly, and get angstier than a teenage girl going stag on prom night. Unfortunately, these types of movies, saturated with their brooding, sparkling vampires and melodramatic, half-naked wolf-boys, tend to attract the attention of a niche crowd (i.e. squealing fan girls), and leave little room for a young, fresh star with a significant martial arts background to prove that he's no one-trick pony. This was obviously the thought process of director John Singleton, because he decided to make "Abduction" - an (incredibly forced) attempt to inject Lautner's image with some high-octane masculinity and chutzpah.

While this idea was sound in theory, it by no means was executed well. Lautner has about as much emotional range as Clive Owen on his most lethargic days and comes across as convincing as a pig in lipstick; fortunately, being as young as he is, he has plenty of time to mature as an actor (as long as they don't release 17 more "Twilight" sequels).

Supplementing the leading man's (boy's?) train wreck of an attempt at sincerity is Lily Collins, whose only notable qualities are her relation to rock icon Phil Collins and her eyebrows' ability to rival the absurdly distracting nature of the single, dark caterpillar Anthony Davis allows to live above his eyes. It's unfortunate, but there is no denying that when Collins' scrunches up her face in what's supposed to be a look of frustration, your eyes are instantly drawn to what your brain will always initially assume is a production of the musical "Cats" playing out on her forehead. Plus, her acting is about as good as Lautner's here, which means the already groan-inducing dialogue is made that much more unbearable when these two are put in situations where they have to interact. Sweet Sally, it's bad.

Even the action sequences are weak, poorly-choreographed, and reek of "copy/paste" dynamics, sloppily stolen from more original works. There's also a lot of awkwardly inserted moments of clunky-looking and completely unnecessary parkour. Thrown in for good(?) measure, I suppose. Sure, why the hell not? When you want something to stink, you want it to stink to high heaven.

There's really not much more to say about this clumsy and mindless flick. Sigourney Weaver makes an inexplicable appearance here, and she seems so bored with - well, everything - that you can't help but assume she was offered some huge boatload of money, or more likely lost a bet. Best of all, despite the movie's title promising some potential thriller-style elements involving kidnapping or identity issues à la "Unknown," there is absolutely no actual abduction in its entirety, save for the abduction of your attention and intelligence as you watch this nonsense. The film gets a half-point, because Lautner does most of his own stunts, and I have to give him some props for that. But in all honesty, homie needs acting lessons if he ever wants to escape the stigma of "The Twilight Saga." It's unfortunate to see such an obvious attempt to exploit him as a "what's hip now" star with such a piss-poor cinematic effort, and it's even more unfortunate to know that people out there are making the mistake of viewing this. Avoid this like the hairiest and smelliest of all the CGI werewolves.

Rating (out of 5): 1.5