I’ve maybe never in my life seen a film that is so content
to try nothing and achieve even less. If you were to put Unknown in a lineup with nine other mistaken identity/espionage
thrillers, you would probably have a one in ten chance of picking it out correctly.
From the poorly shot, poorly edited action sequences, to the icy blue color
filter aesthetic, to the convoluted and inconsequential plot twists; this movie
looks exactly like one million other crappy, forgettable films that I’ve seen
over the last decade. And it doesn't even have the decency to be so terrible that it becomes memorable. It's just generic and mind wiping. Liam Neeson, seemingly out of nowhere, made a lot of
money playing an action hero in the revenge film Taken. This movie exists, quite obviously, as simply a chance at
casting Neeson in another action role, cutting a trailer that looks as much
like Taken as possible, and trying to
cynically grab cash from a (hopefully) ignorant and blind audience. Unknown is a clear indication of the
studio system’s contempt for the filmgoing public. What they don’t get is that Taken worked because it had a good
trailer that got people in the theaters, and then it delivered the goods with
really fun action and cathartic violence. Comparatively, Unknown tricks its audience into the theater and then it gives them
nothing. Small wonder it didn’t manage to make nearly as much at the box
office. Plus, it committed the sin of casting January Jones as anything other
than Don Draper’s frigid, blank page of a wife. When will casting agents give
up on this girl? Keep this Stepford Wife out of my movies.
