The Commuter

Liam Neeson is still badass, but in Commuter he looks like he’s tired of that. His hero has adapted a bit to the situation, he is no longer the unwavering killing machine he was in Taken, but a panting 60 year old son of a bitch who can hardly make it to the wild, digital finale. The finale of an action thriller that is cruelly predictable with its last twist, but nevertheless has some decent pacing and one or two really dramatic and imaginative scenes. Jaume Collet-Serra is still doing his thing and holds the trilogy to a higher standard than Liam did in, say, the severely degraded Taken trilogy. Still, it's quite a lot for the third time, and while it manages to build up tension from the edge and Vera Farmiga seems like an apparition from another planet in those femme fatale 5 minutes, by the second half it’s already running on fumes. Towards the end, only those seemingly inconspicuous characters obediently squeak onto the stage to break up the screenwriter's misery. It is watchable, because the train setting is attractive – Steven Seagal could tell you a thing or two about it. (15/02/2018)

The Commuter is a surprisingly bad thriller (considering it promised to be the next Non-Stop), where not only is there no consistent story logic, but the fights are very digital and unrealistic, which is unacceptable in today’s filmmaking. It doesn’t work even as an entertaining genre movie, as the only things worth mentioning here are Liam Neeson and a casting inside joke for movie geeks in the form of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga from the Conjuring series. (07/02/2018)

The standard Liam Neeson reunites with director Jaume Collet-Serra in a suspenseful thriller that is fun to watch but unfortunately doesn't bring much new to the table. It bothers me a bit that every new Liam film, is actually exactly the same as the previous one. Non-Stop was set on a plane, The Commuter takes place on a train, and the plot is more or less similar, except that I found Non-Stop more entertaining and its denouement more surprising, whereas here I found out all too soon. Too many similarities for my taste, as if they didn't know how to handle the script. That said, the train derailment is solid and Liam still manages the smaller fights, so it's still above average, but it could have been more creative. 70% (08/02/2018)

Let me put it mildly and say that the filmmakers didn't do a very good job of making the film. I’ll keep all the curse words to myself. I've never had anything against Liam Neeson. I was there with him when he was rescuing his daughter and wife, or walking over tombstones, and I’ve always been quite satisfied, but I shouldn't have gotten on that train with him. I think an honest tagline for this film could be: How an Aging Insurance Guy Gets Lucky. At least that would have been a red flag for me. Liam Neeson really wasn't up to the role, the plot was stupid and predictable, the ending was incredibly dumb, and I didn’t enjoy this at all. I'm giving it two stars because no trains were harmed during the making of the film. (23/06/2018)

Liam Neeson and Jaume Collet-Serra have met on the screen for the fourth time already and yet again, I can’t get enough of it. A perfect small-scale film with an inventive script that uses a train the good old Agatha Christie way and offers a gripping plot with a solid unravelling. And since Liam is a champ for his age and Jaume can work well with CGI, you’re up for a rollercoaster full of adrenaline. It might reek of special effects, but I didn’t mind that one bit. Great camera angles brilliantly capture the action scenes and doesn’t start shaking as soon as Liam look at it the wrong way. It created so much adrenaline that it was hard for me to lower my blood pressure back to normal after watching the movie. (13/09/2018)