Retribution (2023)

It's a new Liam Neeson movie y'all! Neeson in the modern age. High tech and palpable.

It starts so good. A convincing thriller starring Liam as still the not never-aging but more so never young working man, focused on his family, co-operating with a nefarious terrorist who seems keen on killing everyone he loves... with a twist, his family is with him, and it's a race not to find them to save them but to find someone else to save them all.

And to maybe save the marriage while he's at it.

It starts so good.

You feel the desperation in the chase. The tech and gadgetry work well in enhancing and complicating the plot - with some beautiful macro shots and a slow-motion explosion in the intro. But after a while...

It doesn't hold. It ends so quickly, and so unnecessarily.

You'd think Anders would've had more sense than to get into the back of a vehicle with a bomb in it - much less stay in it as it speeds off. And he loses control even earlier.

The dialog falters too.

I appreciate the bonding and rekindling of lost connections that occurs in parallel with the blasts and panic, but it's not all a clever puzzle in the end - nor is there the grander motive that you'd hope for and expect - although I did not expect the villain to be who he was.

It makes sense though, then.

It starts so good... I wish it didn't lose me towards the end. By then it all seems so disappointingly simple after all...

 rated 3.5/5: not bad at all