Abduction Directed by: John Singleton Starring: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina Rating: NR Release Date: September 23, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 4/10
Thoughts by TSR: I'll admit my bias here. I'm always a little leery when it comes to one of the Twilight actors busting out on their own, but with Abduction, I have good reason. Within 2:30, it became painfully clear that Taylor Lautner doesn't seem to have what it takes to carry a movie or even make a marketable action star.
He lumbers through melodramatic lines about isolation and feeling "different" as if that makes him special. It's called being a teenager, buddy. Now grow the hell up. But, oh wait, he really is different. "Different" in the sense that at a young age, he was kidnapped and taken care of by two people posing as his parents. I know this may be an unpopular train of thought, since kidnapping is bad and all, but it didn't look like he was really wanting for anything, so as far as kidnapping stories go, I'm pretty sure this guy could've done worse.
But it's not even the questionable plot that turns me off of Abduction. The whole thing is just so ludicrous. Now, I know that action movies don't tend to have the best track record when it comes to plot or acting or even execution, but I have to draw the line somewhere. What Abduction seems to be peddling is this semi-friendly, teenage dream of what it means to be in an action movie. They unsuccessfully try to punch up Lautner's youth, while also making him a viable action star and something about it just doesn't work for me. It seems too kid-friendly and sanitized for the type of genre that it wants to be. At this point, there's no way of telling if that's the fault of the movie, its star, or just the trailer in general, but I can tell you right now that I won't be sticking around to find out.