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Abduction (2011)

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Abduction | SPIN CYCLE Taylor Lautner and Lily Collins in Abduction
Image credit: Bruce Talamon
SPIN CYCLE Taylor Lautner and Lily Collins in Abduction
EW's GRADE
C

Details Release Date: Sep 23, 2011; Rated: PG-13; Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama; With: Taylor Lautner; Distributor: Lionsgate

Even playing the hunted, jacked-up, dude-on-the-run hero of a ''realistic'' action film, Taylor Lautner still looks like the world's sexiest werewolf in Abduction. There's a stylized quality to his features — not just the lupine snub nose, but the daggerish Son of Spock eyebrows that lend him a squint of intensity even when not very much is going on. That face gives Lautner one advantage as an actor: He's a great camera subject, like the young Matt Damon crossed with Tom Cruise. It also gives him a disadvantage: When the blankest look you've got is already ''intense,'' how do you show greater intensity? You squint a little more.

Packed with stoic tattooed Serbian hitmen and hairbreadth escapes (are you yawning yet?), Abduction is a ''high-powered'' potboiler that merges the Bourne genre with the junior-assassin thriller Hanna. Lautner plays the secret teenage son of a CIA superagent; when his cover is blown, he and his eye-candy schoolmate (Lily Collins) are pursued by foes and tracked by a CIA overseer (Alfred Molina). Director John Singleton offers bits of suspense, but Abduction is less a movie than a piece of engineering, a glumly ludicrous cat-and-mouse blowout designed to win Lautner male fans along with his girl demo. He's not a terrible actor, but if he wants a career after the Twilight fades, he'll pick better films. C

Originally posted Sep 23, 2011 Published in issue #1175 Oct 07, 2011 Order article reprints
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