Unknown: Movie Review

I had the chance to take my wife out on a date and see a movie at Cineplex last night. We had a great night and really enjoyed Unknown but it was just far too predictable and a complete knock off of another movie(s) (my wife called the movie out at the beginning just FYI).If you plan to watch Unknown then you really shouldn't read any further. This post is going to contain every kind of spoiler and I'm holding nothing back.

***Consider yourself warned.***

The movie has thrills and fun but bugged me as it was a blatant rip off.

Simply put, if Matt Damon was older and wanted to remake the first Bourne movie, he would make Unknown. Liam Neeson wakes up from his coma, after a taxi took a dip in a river within the first minutes of the movie, and he begins to believe his cover for his secret mission is who he really is. He believes he's a university prof and not an assassin sent to kill someone with secret corn. Yes, secret corn.

The taxi driver that saved Neeson's life comes back into the movie and there's a car chase scene that really bugged me. I mean, the action was great, but Neeson was driving. Why was Neeson driving when the girl with him was a taxi driver who knows the city and could have found some secret shortcut to get away from the bad guy. Perhaps Neeson was just pissed about that whole bridge, river, accident, coma thing still.

Liam Neeson still kicks ass in this movie. You would have thought that after escaping other assassin's trying to kill him SEVERAL TIMES that he would have begun to think that he was someone else, BUT NO!!! Instead he keeps thinking he's some innocent doctor there to make a presentation and has no previous skills in hand to hand combat.

My favorite part of the movie would have been Neeson reaching for some scissors on a nurse and barely being able to reach them. At this point I whispered to my wife, "Use the force" and he totally... didn't. Next time maybe.

The movie came to an abrupt explosion at the end, in which January Jones blows up (which I thought was awesome and funny) and Neeson has one final fight scene in the fallen debris of the hotel in which he shows he ain't no old man.I just wish the bad guy would have come back one more time or that they showed Neeson having some nasty history with the guy, but that would have required some plot development...

Neeson discovers he doesn't like being an assassin anymore and flees Berlin with a beautiful young lady who is also fleeing from her past as well... sounds a lot like Bourne Identity doesn't it? I just hope they don't think they can make sequels to Unknown, because truth be told they became Known within the first 10 minutes.

All in all, one thumb up, 3/5 stars for a fun, thrilling movie.

Cheers,

Matthew A. Hawkins