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TIT

'Tooken'
(Margaret Cho, Lee Tergesen, Donnie Wahlberg, Jenny McCarthy, Laura-Leigh, Ethan Suplee, Lukas Haas, et al / DVD / R / 2015 / Cinedigm Entertainment)

Overview: In this spoof film on the TAKEN action-film franchise, Bryan Mills (Lee Tergesen) is an ex-CIA agent now working as a mall security guard. He keeps finding his things are being taken from him his wife, his dog...his daughter s virginity. With the help of his ex-CIA elderly mother, Bryan battles his nemesis BrownFinger (Margaret Cho) to free his family and a pound of dogs in danger of exploding.

DVD Verdict: OK, well, if you're in the mood for a spoof movie you've come to the right place. However, if spoof movies are not your cup o' tea and you cannot abide them in any shape or form, the ignore this movie like the plague! Personally, I fall into the former group, I love a good spoof, and luckily for me 'Tooken' turned out to be a pretty darn good spoof flick.

Indeed, for a spoof movie, where things only have to come relatively close to the real thing, they have gotten Liam Neeson's accent down pretty good. Also, the Famke Janssen is really spot on, and they have simply overly sexualized the daughter character! Much of the humor revolves around penis jokes while the production itself still manages to bear a heavy resemblance to the actual film in question. Let's be honest here, the original material from 'Taken' (and 2 and 3) was already a bit far-fetched, so 'Tooken' predictably plays it to their advantage also. Meaning,they crank it to 11 and let it fly, in most scenes! Replicating the 'Taken' storyline, along with some other recent works of Liam Neeson, it also packs in a few stereotypical characters, which are sometimes awkwardly shoehorned in just for dirty jokes scenario.

The lead Lee Tergesen ('Weird Science') - and someone I actually hung out with 20 years ago when he came to town as the cousin of the girl I was dating! - makes the most of the fact he started off with a Neeson-ish accent in real life, but the fact he is basically surrounded by en mass of stereotypical "bad guys," and eye-catching "hot young girls" just means that your eye line is distracted sometimes! In closing, 'Tooken' is exactly what you think it is, and so if you’re in the mood for that kind of movie, then you may be amused, but as far as a comedy goes it's repetitive and juvenile - which, again, coming full circle, may also be what you're into, of course! This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Feature of:

Behind-The-scenes Featurette
Cribs Spoof with Reno Wilson
Deleted Scenes

www.CinedigmEntertainment.com





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