Reviewed by Richard Lee Zuras

Released Jan. 30, 2009

1 hr. 33 min.

PG-13

Pierre Morel/20th Century Fox

Liam Neeson

Famke Jannsen

Maggie Grace

Xander Berkeley

It is time to wake up and question the world around us. I don’t mean to say here that we should wake up and question the corruption that is allowing prostitution rings like the one in this movie–I know better than to think the average American will get involved in that. Heck, to be honest, if it took this film to instruct you and lead you to this problem then it is clear that you live in a fantasy world anyway. This subject has been covered in journalism since forever, and covered on celluloid to better effect many years ago in the HBO series The Wire.

I’m talking about the fact that movies have turned into nothing more than commerce. Now this has been a topic of concern since the early days of the studio bosses, but things are beginning to sour in a new way. Never before in the long and storied history of film have movies purposely been cut to turn obvious R subject matter into PG-13 rated films. As I will explain, this hurts everyone involved EXCEPT the studios.

Witness the simple fact that Bond movies used to garner R not PG-13 ratings. Witness the fact that the comic book movies are getting PG-13 ratings. Witness the fact that Taken somehow gained a PG-13 rating. What is going on is now a decade old and seems to be taking on a new ability. The heads of studios admitted in the late 1990’s that it made no sense to cut a movie to R when PG-13 would gain more audience/money. So films began to lose a little quality, as subjects of a mature nature were cut to afford the Holy Grail: PG-13 rating. More people went, and we (adults) all noted that the films would have been better as R fare.

Now, fast forward ten years. The violence and outright subject matter that had been trimmed, much to our dismay, has been/is being put back in. The rating, however, is remaining the same. Well, Newton’s third law says there must be an equal and opposite reaction. And there is. The result is that while we as adults have ostensibly re-gained our R movie fare, the kids sitting around us have gained it as well.

Do an experiment. Take a PG-13 film from 1984 (in Pg-13’s infancy) and play it alongside Taken. Or The Dark Night. Or Quantum of Solace. Better yet–find PG and R movies from pre-1984 and play them. You can easily tell that certain movies have adult fare and are thus R movies. No question. Heck, the main concern in the 1970’s was how some movies (like The Exorcist) were getting an R instead of an X. This begs the question: In 20 years will we be amazed to find that movies that are clearly PG-13 are getting PG or even G ratings?

Oh, and if you think I am over-reacting to what (in Taken) even the MPAA calls “intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language,” then let me remind you of the countries that think 13 years old is too young for this movie:

Australia

UK

New Zealand

Ireland

South Africa

Peru

Argentina

Brazil

Norway

Canada

Finland

Germany

Sweden

Singapore

Of course France thinks 12 is old enough for Taken. So we’ve got that…

Bottom line 3.5/5.0 for adults

Bottom Line 0.0/5.0 for young children