Taylor Lautner doesn't fall far from 'Twilight' role, adding to film's overall failure
Given his huffed-and-puffed shoulders, sculpted abs and martial arts record, it was only a matter of time before “Twilight” heartthrob Taylor Lautner scored his first leading action role.
Unfortunately for him, that role is in a clumsily directed, terribly written, inept pseudo thriller, and Lautner’s character is just as one-dimensional as his fan base-producing werewolf role.
The movie begins in suburban Pennsylvania, where Nathan Harper (Lautner) lives the high school life with his mother (Maria Bello) and father (“Harry Potter’s” Jason Isaacs).
Nathan is portrayed as having anger issues and “feels like a stranger in his own life.” His mother chooses probation as a means of punishment and his father often resorts to hand-to-hand sparring.
About five minutes into the film, the audience inevitably sees a shirtless Lautner. It probably would have helped the teen heartthrob if his shirt stayed on, but why divest his devoted “Team Jacob” followers of what they paid to see?
Then again, his acting abilities are so dubious that it probably wouldn’t have mattered either way.
Nathan has a long-time crush on the unbelievably hot girl across the street, Karen (“The Blind Side’s” Lily Collins). They inadvertently end up working together on a class assignment and come across a missing persons website which has Nathan’s baby picture posted on it, thus beginning the plot’s overall ludicrousness.
It turns out the website was created by a Russian terrorist organization for the sole purpose of discovering Nathan’s location.
Moments later, Nathan is hunted down by both Viktor Kozlow (“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s” Michael Nyqvist), who leads the group of Russian terrorists, and CIA operative Frank Burton (Alfred Molina). His fake parents get killed and Nathan is forced to hit the road with Karen.
Nathan also has his own personal Obi-Wan Kenobi helping him along the way in the form of his psychotherapist (Sigourney Weaver).
The title itself serves as one of the film’s most baffling aspects. Nothing in the film actually gets abducted.
It is difficult to tell which is shoddier about the film: the writing, the acting or the direction.
Laughably ridiculous dialogue and plot holes, such as Nathan telling his shrink that he has been suffering from severe insomnia and directly mentions a dream he had the previous night, contaminate the asinine script. Nathan, after being depicted as a spoiled, crabby and hard-partying teenager from the beginning, is hard to care for.
The absurd lines, like “There’s a bomb in the oven” and “You’ll be responsible for the death of every one of your friends on Facebook,” are so laughable that it makes it impossible to find the positives in the film, if there are any.
The storyline is completely lacking. The coincidences toward the start of the film, which are meant to progress the plot, are confounding — most notably, the discovery of the missing persons website during a random class assignment that coincidentally pairs Nathan with his dream girl.
Lautner’s exceptional martial arts background serves him well as he performs his own stunts, but most of the action scenes are too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
The climactic battle at the Pittsburgh Pirates stadium, along with the other action segments, falter because Lautner can’t hold his own in this “Bourne Identity/Fugitive-esque” misfire.
Bottom line: “Abduction” is basically just a utilization piece designed to capitalize on its young star’s popularity.
The best way to survive this flick made for “tweens” with the attention span of a fly is to think of it as an unintentional comedy.