Who's in it? Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs
The plot Twilight's lovelorn werewolf Jacob Black is in Tom Cruise Junior mode here, as a high school senior, Nathan Price, living with the uneasy daily feeling that he's not quite like everyone else. Typical teenage egotism? Not quite, because when Nathan's friend, crush and neighbour, Karen Lowell (Collins) stumbles on a website that shows photos of children who went missing years ago - along with pictures of what they might look like now - Nathan's face is right there on the site.
What Karen was doing on an idle school night flicking through a website of abducted children, as opposed to say itunes or eplusmagazine.ae, is neatly explained as a ‘high school assignment', but pretty soon Nathan's wondering exactly who that pair downstairs who call themselves ‘mom' and ‘pop' really are. Actually, pop, Kevin (played by the excellent Jason Isaacs - Harry Potter's Lucius Malfoy) is quite the toughie, subjecting Nathan to bouts of martial arts lessons when he gets caught doing the usual teenage stuff. Could he be secretly training him for something, hmmm?
Abduction - Official Trailer [HD] - YouTube
Unable to forget his image on the site, Nathan calls the phone number posted alongside the pic and, uh oh; to quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: "Big mistake. Huge." Within hours, two assassins have turned up at the front door, making short work of his ‘parents' who die saving him, and Nathan escapes, ending up in hospital, but not before making a frantic 911 call.
With the call intercepted by CIA agent Frank Burton (Molina), before Burton can bring him into what he says will be protective custody, Nathan's long-time psychiatrist, Dr Bennett (Weaver) arrives at the hospital and tells her teenage ward not to trust the CIA; actually, not to trust anyone… except for her, of course. One problem though, she's not really a psychiatrist, she's simply been pretending to be one for all these years in order to keep an eye on Nathan (the basis for a trusting relationship? We think not!) But her warning sends Nate off on a Bourne-lite adventure, Karen in tow, with much butt-kicking, explosions and people who aren't who they say they are ensuing.
What we liked The fact that Lautner's acting style is so wooden that every time he enters a scene we thought someone had thrown a chair into the room is neither here nor there - the boy is gorgeous, ripped and pretty believable as a burgeoning action star in the Cruise mould. And the action scenes are spot on; the kid can punch!
What we didn't like If you're expecting fast-paced, non-stop action of the Crank variety, then you may be disappointed. The build up is sloooooow.
Rating 4/5
