Liam Neeson

al28283 · 05-08-2012 1:52am #1

Just watching The Grey there an d it's not a bad movie. but Liam Neeson is pretty awesome in it and I realised just how many movies he doesn't suck in.

I wouldn't call myself a huge fan of his but when it comes to the amount of movies he appears in every year I think only Samuel L. Jackson and Nicolas Cage come close, but Neeson, love him or hate him, is pretty damn consistent in whatever he's in. I even worked on wrath of the titans so I know he's starred in some duds but I can't say he' bad in it.

I'd be interested in gettin a general sense of his hit/miss ratio.
He's pretty much always Liam Neeson but what is he particularly great/terrible in?

And lets just leave Darkman out of it.

MJ23 · 05-08-2012 10:57am

He's brilliant as Ras al Ghul.

mike65 · 05-08-2012 11:03am

Darkman is a good film.

Links234 · 05-08-2012 11:04am

mike65 wrote: »

Darkman is a good film.

Came here to say the same thing.

Tipsy McSwagger · 05-08-2012 11:09am

He is starting to take every film role offered to him which is not a good thing. I like him but he has only been in about 5 or 6 good films and one masterpiece Schindlers List.

snausages · 05-08-2012 11:19am

Tbh, he seems to be more of a paycheck man these days. The Grey and Batman might be the only two 'good' movies I've seen him in recently.

Outkast_IRE · 05-08-2012 11:26am

snausages wrote: »

Tbh, he seems to be more of a paycheck man these days. The Grey and Batman might be the only two 'good' movies I've seen him in recently.

Not too sure what to make of the sheer amount recent roles really, but i remember him at a interview saying after the death of his wife he took on as much as he could to simply keep busy.
If you look as his IMDB filmography it would look like he will be slowing down next year a bit.
Hopefully anyway , im a big believer in quality over quantity. Over saturation of mediocre movies will damage his cred.

nix · 05-08-2012 1:49pm

Way i see it is, the movies he was in would have went ahead without him, I'm thankful to see him performing solidly, which he does IMO, even if the movie itself isnt that good. So im always glad to see him on screen instead of someone else who may get under my skin. Plus there is more to movies than just making masterpieces, some of them would be fun to make, some movies may take him to places in the world he's never been, and as someone mentioned, his wife passed, doing all the movies may have helped him mourn and adapt.

Looking at IMDB, the only movie he was in that ive seen that i taught was crap was clash of the titans. But he was good in it, just the movie itself was crap.

Oh and Darkman is awesome!

mfceiling · 05-08-2012 1:51pm

Just found out the other week that he is quite closely related to me.

Uncle did up a family tree for the granny's 80th birthday and lo and behold he is very close on the mother's side of the family!!

shaneb92 · 05-08-2012 3:20pm

He was class in "Taken" , cant wait for Taken 2!!

Tipsy McSwagger · 05-08-2012 6:25pm

nix wrote: »

Way i see it is, the movies he was in would have went ahead without him, I'm thankful to see him performing solidly, which he does IMO, even if the movie itself isnt that good. So im always glad to see him on screen instead of someone else who may get under my skin. Plus there is more to movies than just making masterpieces, some of them would be fun to make, some movies may take him to places in the world he's never been, and as someone mentioned, his wife passed, doing all the movies may have helped him mourn and adapt.

Looking at IMDB, the only movie he was in that ive seen that i taught was crap was clash of the titans. But he was good in it, just the movie itself was crap.

Oh and Darkman is awesome!

You must have seen The Phantom Menace.

Son0vagun · 05-08-2012 7:41pm

Clash of titans, anyone? Shocking movie!

BopNiblets · 05-08-2012 7:52pm

mfceiling wrote: »

Just found out the other week that he is quite closely related to me.

Uncle did up a family tree for the granny's 80th birthday and lo and behold he is very close on the mother's side of the family!!

Get her to ask him if he wants to go for a few pints with some internet guys. :pac:

nix · 05-08-2012 8:59pm

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

You must have seen The Phantom Menace.

meh i doubt he knew it would be bad signing up to it, it was star wars for christ sake, be a hard role to turn down considering the love everybody had for the franchise prior to the new movies.

Bobby Baccala · 05-08-2012 9:38pm

Liked him in Schindlers List which is basically a masterpiece, completely hated him in Taken which is an absolute pile of titties.

paddy kerins · 05-08-2012 10:42pm

P4DDY2K11 wrote: »

Liked him in Schindlers List which is basically a masterpiece, completely hated him in Taken which is an absolute pile of titties.

He'd like a word

eVlWQWprMUJnWTQx_o_mel-gibson-calls-liam-neeson---taken.jpg

norrie rugger · 05-08-2012 11:01pm

snausages wrote: »

Tbh, he seems to be more of a paycheck man these days.

I always wonder about comments like above? The only reason that I go to work is because I get a paycheck. It is the same with soccer players, they are "meant" to show loyalty to a club and not look after themselves?

If someone offers me a shed load of money to star in a mediocre film I can tell you one thing, I would be all over that crap.

snausages · 05-08-2012 11:11pm

norrie rugger wrote: »

I always wonder about comments like above? The only reason that I go to work is because I get a paycheck. It is the same with soccer players, they are "meant" to show loyalty to a club and not look after themselves?

If someone offers me a shed load of money to star in a mediocre film I can tell you one thing, I would be all over that crap.

Fair enough. I'm not belittling him or anything, if he finds those kinds of roles fulfilling or whatever then that's his own business. I'm just saying that he's not the type of name I would automatically associate with a quality film these days.

Sad Professor · 06-08-2012 9:29am

Neeson was never above taking paycheck roles, though in the past he tended to mix it up a bit. But since the death of his wife he seems to have abandoned serious roles altogether. His decision to drop out of Lincoln was bizarre. He turned down working with Spielberg again and the chance to win an Oscar.

mike65 · 06-08-2012 9:41am

Liam Neeson was probably never going to be a "legacy" actor just a very reliable one, he's got little to be embarrassed about.

fluke · 06-08-2012 9:51am

While Taken is divisive I think it can be accredited for restoring his leading man appeal – there was a time where he seemed to be always drafted in for smaller roles to make cameos/play father figures/or die in a film. Sometimes all three.

pixelburp · 06-08-2012 2:31pm

To be fair, when you take away his role in Schindlers List, there's little in Neesons CV that suggests anything other than a standard, jobbing actor with the occasional big supporting role. He has a lot of screen presence to be sure, but it's not as like the man's a classic thespian type. In fact before Schindler, his most famous role would probably have been Darkman, or one of the guys from Krull :pac: Not exactly the back catalogue of a legend.

So whether it was his idea or his agents, and whatever the motivation for it, his reinvention as the go-to Hollywood action hero is a pretty smart manoeuvre really; he discovered a niche and he's working with it.

Gandalph · 06-08-2012 6:24pm

OldeCinemaSoz · 06-08-2012 9:20pm

Personally speaking, and not discounting the past mumber of abortions in The Bond series, I'm quite looking forward to TAKEN 2 above and
beyond SKYFALL....

MyBrokenKnees · 07-08-2012 1:38pm

I have to be very honest here I really liked him in the A Team. It was a pants of a film but I though he was a very good Hannibal

ricero · 07-08-2012 1:45pm

OldeCinemaSoz wrote: »

Personally speaking, and not discounting the past mumber of abortions in The Bond series, I'm quite looking forward to TAKEN 2 above and
beyond SKYFALL....

That's pathetic skyfall will be the action movie event of the year while taken 2 will suck balls

AnonoBoy · 07-08-2012 1:54pm

ricero wrote: »

That's pathetic skyfall will be the action movie event of the year while taken 2 will suck balls

Don't waste your time seeing films just follow ricero's future-predicting posts! :pac:

don ramo · 07-08-2012 2:10pm

ricero wrote: »

That's pathetic skyfall will be the action movie event of the year while taken 2 will suck balls

you have seen the avengers, dark knight rises, and also with the upcoming bourne film, im not saying skyfall will be bad, just saying i doubth itll be the action film of the year, battleship more than likely had more action that bond will have,

that scene in lifes to short was epic

:D:D

i always thought he was good in michael collins, his part in batman begins was very good, it is weird that at 60 his niche is action films, but hey if he can pull it off fair play,