Helpful hint, If you’re ever on a plane and Liam Neeson gets on, grab your carry on and just… walk… out.. EH EH EH… go.
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“Non-Stop” is the latest “Liam Neeson is coming to get you” movie. This time as a troubled air marshall on a non-stop flight to London. After it becomes clear that someone on board is up to no good it is up to him to find out who and protect the passengers along for the ride. At it’s heart Non-Stop is a one room murder mystery, only this time the who dun it is at 30,000 feet.
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You know, Liam Neeson movies are like Dorito shelled tacos, they just seem ridiculous and unnecessary on first glance, and then you take a bite, and it’s like wait a second, Is this good? am I actually enjoying this junk? And why are my fingers orange? Maybe that last one is just the tacos but you get the idea. So what is so tasty about Non-Stop? Well the acting isn’t awful, in fact Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson both find some really powerful notes in the type of movie that wouldn’t usually be known for its thespionic offerings. Plus the effects are done well, the mystery and suspense are genuinely engaging, and the way the movie handles texting on screen is often clever and moves the plot along quickly. which is really the best thing about Non-Stop, it lives up to it’s title! Look, you go into action movies expecting fast paced, tightly edited, suspense driven thrills and this movie has them. If nothing else, at least I was never bored. Often incredulous, but at least never bored.
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Yes, incredulous. I mean the movie is a bit hard to swallow at times, especially in the final act, relying on some of the typical over the top moments that these kind of plots seem to specialize in. And those, “are you serious?” moments can truly be distracting and unfortunately give the movie a been there, done that feel. I mean Neeson movies are so much of a formula by this point that if he was in Phantom Menace today I half wonder if they would have Darth Maul kidnap Anakin and then have Qui Gon bark at the emperor through some sort of force phone about his “particular set of light saber skills”. Now that I think of it, that actually might have worked better. Anyhow, yes, there was plenty of eye rolling to be had but I never felt like my eyes were rolled so far that I wasn’t able to roll them back to enjoy the show.
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Overall, “Non-Stop” is a Liam Neeson paint by numbers. You know you’re getting lots of intensity, a bad guy who needs a lesson taught to him, and a troubled Neeson ready to administer the education. Even if it can be silly and a bit predictable the action notes and mystery keep it engaging enough for me to raise it up to a surprising B.
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Thanks for checking out this Your Movie Friend review, stay tuned for this review’s “Best Ever” challenge here in bit but first, I’m going to put up some stuff you can click over in this area. If you’d like to subscribe, which I would much appreciate, you can do so by clicking the big gray subscribe button. Want to see more? Well the only other movie this week was the Biblical epic “Son of God” so you can click to see my review of that and don’t forget to check out The Critic, The Geek, and the Girl every other Monday if you’d like a longer more conversational take on some of these films. You can also Click the logo up here to go to yourmoviefriend.com where you can search by title for reviews. And finally this review’s “Best Ever” Challenge, where you name the best movie ever in a particular category and also try to identify my choice. So what is the “the best Liam Neeson movie ever”? I’m half tempted to go with the one that came out just a couple weeks ago and had him growling the word “Kragle”, but instead I’ll go with the one that is shot in mostly Black and White, hard to beat that one.. Drop your own answer and a guess at mine in the comments and first person to guess mine gets a point! Thanks and please subscribe!