Movie Reviews, News, and Trailers

New Movie “Abduction” has some problems. One of the largest problems is that nobody in this movie ever gets abducted. Nevertheless, this new movie release is going to have plenty of fans due to star Tyler Lautner’s popularity from the “Twilight” series. It makes no difference that this unbelievable and ridiculous action/thriller, poorly directed by John Singleton (“Boyz in the Hood”), gets little but one syllable acting from Lautner. Older audiences aren’t going to have much interest in Lautner, but fans of Twilight will!
In “Abduction”, a “watch movie online” kind of a movie, Lautner is Nathan, a young kid from Pennsylvania from a happy home who consistently experiences nightmares. Therapist Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Bennett) thinks they’re just due to typical teen angst. But then Nathan finds a picture of himself as a young child on a website devoted to finding missing children. He takes it upon himself to question his mother, played by Maria Bello, as to what’s going on. As he starts to question everything in his life his only real comfort is his adorable neighbor Karen, played by Lily Collins. Suddenly Nathan and Karen are on the run. Men have shown up, for no apparent reason, who are international terrorists and from the CIA.
Movie forums are questioning if the story or the writing take the cake for which is worse in “Abduction.” It looks like both may be in the running for a Razzie Award. Writer Sean Christensen would like viewers to believe that a terrorist group would create a website to capture a child in order to find his parents. The film shows very little interest in why Nathan would have been removed from his real parents and put in a home with foster parents. I could tell and spoil the fun but the truth is that the reason is so ridiculous that it’s not worth repeating.
Lautner is not particularly appealing in “Abduction.” Not only is he a lousy actor but he plays Nathan as spoiled, whiney, and strange. Of course, a lot of teens are spoiled, whiney, and strange but Lautner brings it all to a new heights. First he’s immature and silly. Then he’s just plain stupid. As soon as he realizes that the CIA has traced a cell phone call he not only lets Karen use the same cell phone to call home but then uses it again, himself, even though he knows it’s a tapped phone. Duh. The terrible script gives lukewarm actor Lautner even less credibility than he might otherwise have had.
And then there are the coincidences which are so ridiculous that it’s unbelievable. Nathan gets a class assignment on “websites” which gets him together with the neighbor he has a crush and also shows him the missing child website so he then creates his own website – all ten days after a relative steals an important piece of information that has everyone looking for his family. In the meantime, lots of bogus technology has been invented which allows the terrorists to follow him everywhere. And then there’s the fact that he takes the one thing in the whole world that everyone wants. And he doesn’t know everyone wants it – or even why they want him.
Director Singleton’s work is also ridiculous. He starts the movie with a view of Pittsburgh which narrows down to one car on a deserted road. It looks like a big film is coming up. But not so. The photography doesn’t seem to mesh together. In one scene Nathan walks in a door just as Karen breaks up with her creepy boyfriend and the eyelines don’t even match. It’s impossible to tell where the two houses in the shot are in proximity to each other.
There are strange camera moves such zooms but there’s no rhyme or reason as to why. At one point there’s a scene in a car that’s very obviously shot against a green screen and through another green screen making it look hazy and too processed. There’s hardly a shot in “Abduction” that doesn’t look phony.
And as for teen attitudes? It shows Lautner riding on a motorcycle without a helmet and also on the hood of a car. Then he flashes guns but doesn’t shoot. And then there’s the scene where Nathan and Karen dry hump each other but figure out that their only real interest is finding some food to eat.
So the abduction part – that’s where your money and your time spent at this movie, which will NOT be one of this year’s top action movies, are gone forever.