Liam Neeson made another action movie. I could say something pithy about that being enough information for you to decide whether to see this one, but since I never even saw Taken 2, it feels disingenuous. Okay then.

I guess the most important thing to say is that Non-Stop never tries to be a good movie. Here’s the example that immediately leapt out at me. After being refused a drink that would have been at least his third of the morning by the stewardess with whom he clearly has some kind of past and receiving unauthorized and also extortionate texts from a mysterious figure who could be anybody at all but probably isn’t air marshal Liam Neeson himself or the redhead sleeping next to him, and who promises to kill a passenger every twenty minutes if his demands are not meant, Neeson pulls out his watch as instructed to set a 20 minute timer, so he will know the mysterious figure is serious. He looks at the time on the watch, clicks a single button on the side, and boom, instant 20 minute countdown timer. From one button on a wristwatch. Because that’s plausible.

Like I said. They’re not aspiring to good. What they are aspiring to, and succeed at, is tension. If you didn’t spend at least a minute suspecting each passenger on the plane, you were not watching the same movie I was.  Here I include the other air marshal, the pilots, the stewardesses, and the obligatory passenger of Arabic descent. (Well, okay, I lie. I actually didn’t suspect him, because come on. I’m never clear on whether the exception that proves the rule is a real thing, or something people say when they didn’t expect there to be an exception and were caught off-guard. But this is definitely one of those two situations.)

Anyway, long story short: sure, it wasn’t a Good Movie. But I’ve watched Good Movies that were bigger wastes of time, and it’s still the time of year when pickings are slim, so hey. Which reminds me, does anyone know if Taken 2 was any good?