Taken (2002)

SCFI themed dramas is rarely a good idea,Taken proves the point. It's just not interesting..The bottom line is you follow a few family's trough generations.Which you can divide into two camps.One side, has one or two in each generation abducted,the other side is the government, investigation into UFO's and alien abductions etc. and doing everything in their power to keep it secret,so they can learn the secret behind their tech.The problem with the entire series is,nothing really happens. It's all very stereotypical.Alien abducted me ,they did weird experiments on me yada yada. No cliff hangers, no nothing.There's really nothing much to be excited about.All just a lot of talk and family dramas.The entire show is basically built on Steven Spielbergs hard-on for aliens.I bet,that if Spielberg wasn't behind this.It would never been green lighted

I have seen this series in one breath.But with every single compliment there is a 'but..' too. Fenning gives a performance that is outstanding given her age but... not all actors give their best unfortunately. The script is intelligent, exiting and it never fails to hold back when things are getting too spooky, fantastic or tempt to ask for too much technical blabla that you usually get in SF. So the events and characters always stay in a realistic decorum that is needed to accept the 'fantastic' without making it ridiculous.But.... the story lacks something. it lacks a planet. or to be more precise, it's premise seems to be that we are more alike then we might think - humans and aliens - but where is 'we'??? Where are the aliens and were is the population of planet Earth? I need them to relate to this great premise. I receive information on aliens but i don't see them act, feel, speak as a group to fulfill this premise. I see three families running through fields, villages.... i see a bunch of soldiers appearing everywhere without any constitutional back power. i hear about cover-ups but i don't see media that is covering or uncovering (just some blabla we usually see in movies), i hear about great theories on the very state of consciousness in both humans and aliens but again... where are they to show it to me?!!!... OK, a few representatives of both groups make this story. but they are tormented, hunted and are not common enough to make me be able to relate to the world they come from. characters chasing each other, mostly out of side of any population or media.... i miss the species of planet earth and beyond.one last thing. And i cannot explain it: i miss a heart. i miss a heart in this series. i miss goosebumps... and i am a sentimental guy. i would get them instantly. i was hooked up. but with the head. It's a Spielberg thing probably (?) and i don't even mean this negative because this great man delivers so many stories to think about. But i miss something that makes me choke..so, again, i would recommend this series. i saw it in one heartbeat, don't get me wrong. but with every SF-movie where i'm so relieved we are not drawn into the ship and are kept in our own imagination, here, in this one.... i needed the alien. clear, visual, acting, relating, talking. everything; so we are more alike then we might think? please show me next time! we are ready to enter the ship!

If you are the kind of person who will look at "Taken" and say "Oh yeah this is gonna be about aliens killing everyone and is gonna have explosions everywhere.". Then you better turn away now. Granted the aliens that are in it are very good the aren't important. Not important you ask?! No, the humans are the important characters in this tale. Firstly we meet the Keyes who are the main family the aliens are looking out for.The second of the three families we meet are the Crawfords. They are the "baddies" who want to destroy the alien "threat". Finally we meet are the Clarkes. The Clarkes are the first family to meet the aliens face to face. "Taken" is the first series I've watched and thought "Although this has not many scenes of violence i'm really enjoying this!" The reason for that is because you really get drawn into the characters lives. The stand out person in "Taken" has to be Dakota Fanning. She is the same age as me yet she can do things I wouldn't ever be able to do. She acts with incredible emotion and narrates beautifully throughout the entire series. I hope whilst watching "Taken" (which will take a long time as it's 877 minutes long) you will be mesmerised by the characters and the perfect plot as I was. "Taken" has taken me (see what I did there?) from someone who loves action and gore to someone who as well as liking that likes the characters and plot lines in all films.

This is quite a good series if you have 10h of hoovering to do while watching it. Other than that I'm not sure.The more Spielberg I watch the more do I start to wonder if he's skipped school a lot or if it is his expectations of the viewers low intelligence that have him make such near tripe. As typical in Hollywood nowadays, the series has to rely heavily on both the viewer's and the character's lack of said intelligence, in order to make ends meet. Add that the only type of suspense you'll find is the typical sudden shock scare that at times is repeated over and over.Things that destroy the magic, like ferns growing in a dark cave, or the occasional other mistake, like a clearly visible ambiance spotlight and its beam lighting up the dark woods, make for just another point of annoyance.The characters are textbook stereotypes, including the narrator (trying to avoid any spoilers here) which at the time of acting is the six year old Dakota Fanning. That her lines contain wisdom of life that would even baffle Gandalf seems to have escaped the realism department.OK, this isn't supposed to be 100% realistic, it's Sci-Fi. But at least I think they should have tried to keep the illusion up a little harder rather than working like everybody was expecting to go on holiday in 6 hours.Sadly my place is very small. Hoovering took me only 30 minutes.