1. Taken 2 (Fox, 3,661 Theaters, 91 Minutes, Rated PG-13): You can’t say he didn’t warn them. ” I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
They took his daughter anyway and, well, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) looked for them, found them and killed them (in Taken). But the parents of the original kidnappers Mills killed don’t really care that their son was warned, they’re out for vengeance. When the Mills’ take a family vacation in Istanbul (Really? Who vacations in Istanbul? And why would you go back to Europe after what happened in the first film?), it Mills and his ex-wife who are taken. Big Mistake.
2. Frankenweenie (Disney, 3,005 Theaters, 87 Minutes, Rated PG): It’s not often that I direct has the opportunity to go back and remake a film that got him fired. But that’s what is happening this week.
Way back in 1984, Tim Burton made a live-action short about a boy who brings his dog back to life for Disney. In a classic case of a director’s style not meshing with a studio’s public image, Disney fired Burton for wasting their money and buried the film. Well, buried it until Burton made a name for himself with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Batman. Then Disney decided to release it on home video.
Now, Burton and Disney have mended their fences and the director is is revisiting that short via stop motion animation.
