Customer Reviews

Steven Spielberg Presents Taken

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I have something in common with alien abductees: `lost time.' Twenty hours of lost time, to be exact. Counting the four hours of self-flagellation for sitting through this painfully boring mini-series amounts to a whole day of my life which would have been better spent watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind twelve times. Obviously, most of the casting budget must have been spent on Dakota Fanning. With the exception of her performance, the acting was one step below a Lifetime made-for-tv melodrama. Heather Donahue was irritating enough for two hours in the Blair Witch Project but after ten hours of her self-conscious twitching and creepy bug-eyes, I was thrilled when it appeared the aliens took her. Alas, they gave her back. Matt Frewer's acting style , while being at least unique and imaginative, has the overall effect of fingernails on a chalkboard or an ice cream headache. You just want it to stop already. Why did I watch the whole twenty hours you might ask. I was hoping for an ending that would justify the money and effort put into this project and was sadly disappointed. The payoff was a simplistic and obvious religious analogy that was an insult to the intelligence of anyone over the age of six years old. They even threw in Peter's denial of knowing Jesus and the little girl's journal as the bible just in case you didn't `get it.' How dumb did they think this audience would be? Bottom line: watch Close Encounters again.and again.and again. For that matter, even an old episode of Max Headroom would be thirty minutes better spent and much more entertaining.

I love stories that span generations. It provides so much opportunity to evolve the characters and the plot. With 15 hours (ten 90 minute episodes roughly) to tell the story, I had high hopes of a truly epic and meaningful story. Taken was neither epic nor meaningful. Every episode, I kept waiting for something to move the plot forward, or change the characters in some significant way (these are the precepts of good story telling, that and a challenge to overcome). At the end of most episodes, I came away feeling disappointed. There was no plot. Everyone was a victim or a bad guy. No heros, no one to root for, no one you could feel good about. The challenge in this story was for the abductees to stay out of the clutches of the "evil government organization", and for everyone to try and figure out what the aliens were up to. Normally, you expect the hero to prevail. But, there was no hero, and nobody prevailed. In fact, everyone's situation just got worse. Several characters were victims of their own evil ways, and the rest were just victims. In this respect, Taken is a tragedy, and the only light at the end of 50 years of people doing bad things to each other is the little girl who finally explains what it's all about. A barely profound 10 minutes of revelation after 15 hours of poor setup for such a simple climax. It might have worked if they forced themselves to tell the story in 3-4 hours. At least then, you could get the same experience without having to wade through so much otherwise useless drama.

I suppose seeing the totally disparate reviews on Taken (here and elsewhere) just points out how many different perspectives there are for good story telling and good sci-fi. I guess I should accept that for many people, alien abduction stories, no matter how badly produced, are always a hit. For such people, Taken provides 15 hours of what you probably like most. A few people have likened Taken to a soap opera. Perhaps that's the appeal I'm missing as well. If you want 15 hours of an alien oriented "Days of Our Lives." Buy the DVD. If you want good story telling, with interesting characters that evolve, a plot that moves and something you'll likely watch again and again, don't buy Taken. In my opinion, this mini-series should have been called "Took." That's how I felt after seeing it on TV. Especially considering what the SciFi channel canceled in order to push this mini series on us.

If you must, catch it on the SciFi channel the next time it comes around. With so many other excellent choices on DVD, don't waste your money to buy Taken.

I love sci-fi and badly wanted to enjoy Taken but there is so much boring, unrelated drama that it's unbearable! People are loving it so maybe it was just me, BUT PLEASE TRY TO CATCH SOME ON TV BEFORE BUYING!!

In addition, I must say that this mini-series is in many ways, an abomination. Spielberg, or whoever was spoonfeeding him, took legitimate stories from historical sources and twisted them into attributing all ufo's to aliens. "Yes, everything is clear to me now- the government really IS trying to protect me from the terrible secret of space". Too much propaganda and not enough storytelling/entertainment. I suspect this review will help 1 in 1 million.

The fact that I am a SF buff has nothing to do with the high rating I gave this series. My wife, who actually could not care less about UFO's, Star Wars etc. watched the whole thing and went "wow". If this happens, then Taken is definitely worth a 5 star rating.

Not that we believe (or we do) in abductions, UFO's etc. but in this case there is actually a story behind everything - and a compelling one. If you expect laser blasters and space fights you are in for a big disappointment, but let this not deter you from watching Taken. It is done very intelligently. The fiction parts are used to glue various pieces of UFO/abductions information/rumor that has been circulating since the forties.

The blend is very believable.

My bottom line - get it even if you are not a SF fan. You won't be sorry.

Al

There is a point in the fourteen and a half hour mini-series TAKEN that you realize you're watching something truly great, and just about the same moment the momentum that carried the first half hits a brick wall and slides into mediocre. The first five episodes represent an excellent, well written, engaging mini-series that gets you hooked by the end of the first episode and makes you excited to see the next. A soap opera of alien abduction and government cover-up with richly drawn characters and some great production values, TAKEN takes a turn after episode five into an overly melodramatic crawler that lacks many of the aforementioned good qualities. The first half takes place between the 1940's and 80's and features some great plotlines and characterization, as well as superb fx and remarkable attenion to period detail. The remainder takes place in present day and has many lulling moments, and very little in the inventive storytelling utilized in parts one through five. On a whole TAKEN is pretty good and definitely worth the look at least for one viewing but keep in mind that for 14+ hours and for 100+ bucks (if you decide to purchase, I'm glad I didn't even though the DVD package is nice and sound and picture quality is really good), it's not as good as the sum of it's better parts, most of which take place early on. All and all TAKEN does entertain, but lacks what most television mini-series lack, and that is the devotion and execution of feature films. TAKEN ends up fizzling out, and thats a shame, because it definitely could've (and should've) been better.

You know that novel you read where each chapter ends on a note that it's impossible for you not to watch the next one to find out what happens? This is the TV version.

When you think of the greatest dramatic television shows and movies of all-time, you think of very few. This is one of them, maybe THE best. You just become entranched, mesmerized by the story, characters, and plots as you watch how the family members from four different generations become entwined in one another.

It gets better exponentially. If I would recommend one thing for a person to watch, it would be this series.

A tip: write down everything the little girl says at the beginning of each series, sometimes at the end. They are such meaningful and true quotes about life and the nature of people. I wish I had.

Steven Spielberg's "Taken" is one of the most ambitious and successful miniseries ever filmed. While those expecting a special effects/action extravaganza might be disappointed, the viewer looking for a human-based, character-driven, thought-provoking science fiction story will find the film extremely rewarding. It balances the different time periods in which the story takes place admirably, not in a gimmicky way a la "Forrest Gump," but more organically, as the times are used to comment on the main story, and vice versa. The most admirable feature of the film is how the three families with which the story is concerned, interweave and interact throughout the decades. If you pay close attention, each character in each generation corresponds symbolically to his or her father or mother. Without giving away too much, you will notice that one character reenacts her own mother's marrying the wrong man and having an extramarital affair, and another character kills her father just as her father killed his. And these are only two examples of how complexly written and thematically strong the series is, as the focus is on genetics and how each generation reflects upon and improves (or worsens) from the one before. Although many complain about the length, 20 hours is the perfect amount of time for us to really get inside these characters' heads. It would have cost the series both sweep and depth to have made it any shorter. It also contains some wonderful flights of fancy, such as when an alien lures a young boy onto a ship by making itself appear like a character from his favorite book. There isn't a weak episode among the bunch, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an intelligent science-fiction story that has thrills aplenty but knows that the true importance lies in the characters.

"Band of Brothers" was a riveting and sophisticated mini-series, but "Taken" is a tepid mess all around. It's a distant cousin of the magnificent "Close Encounters," the innocent fable "E.T," the engagingly prophetic "Minority Report" and the fascinating "A.I." "Taken" has weak graphics, a disappointing story and generic casting. In fact, I didn't feel Spieldberg's presence much in this at all. I think he phone-homed it in. It's a boring slog. And they cancelled "Farscape" for this? Pffffft... there's no sign of life in Sci-Fi Channel's universe. Not recommended.

The series is a power-mix of everything UFO-Alien, it borrows heavily, and sometimes just steals ideas from Close Encounters, E.T., Independence Day, X-Files, 50's sci-fi movies, history and more. But don't expect to see many aliens, it's more about humans, and that is why it works. At first, I wasn't sure. But after the first two chaptes, I was hooked. I found a big flaw in the transition and aging of characters from chapter to chapter for two reasons, incompatible casting from child/teen to adult characters and not very convincing makeup. Also the way some key characters are eliminated from the plot is almost cartoonish. Very good performance by Joel Gretsch as the relentless Owen Crawford, and I found an interesting performace by Matt Frewer as the sarcastical and witty Dr. Chet Wakeman. But the best is cute, little Dakota Fanning, she steals the show. I hope Spielberg has more projects in mind for her potential tallent. 3/4 of the way the series starts to deviate dangerously, but falls back on track to a rewarding ending. Overall the series is very good. Highly recommended.

Some have likened the nearly 15-hour miniseries "Taken" to "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" meets "The X-Files." That's not far off the mark. In fact, it is what this reviewer thought even before reading similar sentiments elsewhere.

Featuring solid television production, good scripts, passable special effects and fantastic performances by a huge cast, "Taken" is a strong series chronicling 50 years of alien abduction and government conspiracies, all circling around three families. Fans of Spielberg's view on aliens and the X-Files' view on government secrecy and paranoia will likely enjoy this (though Spielberg's sweetness and light trumps the Files' jaded cynicism in the end).

All ten episodes, each 90 minutes long, tie together to form one long narrative, though many of the episodes can serve well as standalone entertainment, too. It is the characters that keep the whole affair afloat, with family being the tie that binds three generations together. Some of the middle episodes are a bit slow, and the later installments rely too heavily on cliffhangers, but all in all viewers will want to keep watching well past bedtime. I was so pulled in, I watched the whole series in just three days.

Most impressive is the cast, who turn in great performances throughout. Great makeup work ages the characters as the series moves forward, allowing us to see people live out 30-plus years of their life in a convincing fashion. Very engaging. Most impressive is the young Dakota Fanning. Pay attention to this one. She turns in a startling, deep, engaging, endearing performance.

Take note, this is not Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. What this is, is classic TV miniseries material. The production values are not nearly on par with those of Band of Brothers. The pacing is television pacing, not movie pacing (deliberate, not action-oriented). And little is shown that could not be shown on network television. None of this works against the series, either. Rarely in these 15 hours does it fail to compel.

So do we get a dark view or light view of aliens? A bit of both, actually. We have dread and we have wonder. They are scary and they are wonderful. Questions of the aliens' intent always linger. Yes, questions are answered for those who watch all 15 hours, but other questions are left open, which is a must for a tale like this. I never felt gypped at being left with too many questions, nor did I ever feel too much was explained.

The DVD set features nice packaging and good disc quality. The last disc of extras is sparse, with a glossy bit of hype disguised as a documentary, but it's better than nothing.

So is "Taken" worth the steep price tag? That's a tough question to answer. For lovers of the aforementioned works, probably. You'll love the first viewing, and you'll watch it more than once. Not as dark as X-Files, nor as light as Close Encounters. For casual fans of the genre, well, a rental might be a good idea before taking the big plunge. Those looking for pure sci-fi, too, should proceed with caution; a special effects extravaganza this isn't.