Calum Gilchrist
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Review: Unknown
11th March
From the trailer, Unknown looks like your standard thriller. It was really portrayed to look like a sequel to Taken. Luckily it ended up being something more interesting and much better than my expectations.
Most people really love Liam Neeson but I’m still never sure how I feel about him. Yes, he’s been in a few great films, like Schindler’s List and Taken (not great but enjoyable) but I’m just not as sure how to gauge his films like I am with other actors I really like.
Unknown, however ended up being really enjoyable and I found Liam Neeson’s performance good for the role. His character was interesting, although I wasn’t as big a fan of him when he starts to remember certain things from his past. At first I thought this ruined his character but his reflections on his past from a new perspective were endearing to his character.
The amnesia idea was played quite well and Liam Neeson’s character’s particular set of skills really made it easy for him to figure everything out. This kind of film always has a nice twist and I found myself second guessing my assumption through most of the film which is always good. I should probably try not to assume the plot twists from the trailers.
One aesthetic observation I have is that there were a lot of scenes that were all blue. It was a really cold blue and it was interesting but I don’t feel it tied in very well. Maybe I’m just trying to point stuff out for the sake of it, but I just found it kind of odd.
I’m writing this review almost a month after seeing Unknown, so I can’t really remember anything about the soundtrack, but I don’t think it was very remarkable. The fighting sequences weren’t breathtaking but they weren’t too hard to watch. I felt some were made of too many fast cuts, but I feel that way about most fight sequences so if you like those there should be no problem there.
Although Unknown doesn’t stand out too much, I wouldn’t write it completely off. If you need something to watch with a family into thrillers (like mine) they’ll probably like the film enough to let it eat a few hours of their time.
Unknown - 3/5
