The Commuter

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)

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)

A movie so moronic I'm embarrassed to look down on it. Collet-Serra is one of the best genre directors working today, and with his ideas and dynamism he practically always wrestles at least a mediocre experience out of utterly terrible screenplays. The same is true here, though I daresay he hasn't held such a monstrosity in his hand yet. My secret theory is that Collet-Serra doesn't read the scripts, but to save time he transcribes them image by image into technical scripts, and by extension storyboards. On page 109 he definitely no longer knows what page nine was about, or rather he probably doesn't even know what page 107 was about, but instead he's making up stuff about how people are going to be cutting themselves with axes and guitars in long digital shots, assisted by a flying camera, and I love him for that. (21/04/2018)

Liam Neeson gets on the train in a pretty bad mood, and it's about to get worse when he finds out that Vera Farmiga has manipulated him into a conspiracy in which his neck is on the line. And not just him. The Commuter is a solid action flick, and exactly what you'd expect from the makers of Unknown and Non-Stop. But you can tell they're running out of ideas. It still paces pretty well and you get exactly what you expect in the cinema, but not a tad more. I quite enjoyed it, but I would have liked to see Neeson and director Jaume Collet-Serra move on to other projects and maybe even genres. They don't have much to offer here anymore. (26/07/2018)

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)