The First Trailer For The Third TAKEN Is Weirdly Compelling

Five minutes ago I couldn't have cared any less about a third Taken movie.  The glut of near-identical films depicting Liam Neesons as a sullen action hero embarking upon a mission of tortured vengeance has muddied the waters a bit.  After Unknown, Non-Stop, A Walk Among The Tombstones and particularly Taken 2, the idea of Liam Neesons, Action Hero has become downright pedestrian.  At least in The Grey he got to fight wolves.

But then this trailer happened and now suddenly I'm on board once again.

It's completely ridiculous that they're still reading off Bryan Mills's super-spy resume three movies in, but the addition of Forest Whitaker is an absolute delight.  I particularly love that he appears to be playing the exact same character he played in The Last Stand.  This gives me hope that these movies secretly take place in the same world, allowing for the possibility that Arnold Schwarzenegger, Luis Guzman and Johnny Knoxville will show up at some point to bail Liam Neesons out of a jam.

Also, can we please call a moratorium on sequel titles that swap a letter with a number?  It doesn't look like clever wordplay so much as the illiterate ramblings of a YouTube commenter.