If you’re a high school student in your rebellious phase, or think Taylor Lautner is one of the greatest actors of our time, you will love “Abduction.” Otherwise, I would advise you to avoid it.
The plot seems a little canned. Nathan (Lautner) finds out the hard way that he is the son of a spy, who has stolen information from Kozlow, another, more dangerous spy. His secret agent, adoptive parents die trying to protect him from Kozlow’s men only moments after Nathan learns they are not his real parents.
Nathan finds himself on the run from both Kozlow’s men, as well as the CIA, who aren’t exactly the most trustworthy bunch in the film. Once the chase starts, Nathan and his love interest drive, ride a train and run on foot. The film starts to become a wannabe Bourne film with all the chase scenes and hand to hand combat. If only the writing and acting wasn’t so humdrum.
Sharkboy is as broody as he almost always is, but spends a lot more time with his shirt on than in previous Twilight Saga appearances. He’s as dark and moody as you’d expect from wolf-child. Lautner is a teen-dream actor, and it’s going to take more than a ho-hum action script to break that image.
The writing was boring, drawn out and cheesy. The writers obviously weren’t targeting a very intelligent audience when they wrote this film. But when you’ve got Lautner’s sexiness laying some evil secret agents out, who really pays attention to the script?
This film wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, meaning that it held my attention, but I didn’t leave the theater very satisfied. The film was shot and set in my native Pittsburgh, Pa., which was probably my favorite thing about it. While it was pretty darn crappy, at least there were some nice shots of The City of Bridges.
Abduction is just more proof that a film needs a solid script as well as good acting to be really enjoyable. Even with renowned names like Alfred Molina, and Sigourney Weaver, their talent is only useful when it has equally good writing to put it to use.