Bottom Feeders: The Twilight Ultimatum

Waiting in line for Abduction was one of the funnest 40 minute lengths of time of my LIFE.  The two teenagers in front of me were clearly no older than sixteen, but had equally as clearly been married for at least thirty years.  “I didn’t eat because Friday night is Pizza Night,” said the girl, with the kind of emphasis that makes you capitalize Pizza Night.  “Well I already ate so we wouldn’t have to buy popcorn,” replied her husband.  “And besides,” he added, “We’ve never had a Pizza Night.”  At this point I was hoping they wouldn’t get to fighting.  Tonight was obviously their night away from the kids.  “Oh.  Well, we should start doing Pizza Night.”

She then backed down, defusing the situation.  Clearly there was stress in their marriage, either because they were having difficulty conceiving a child or because they both had to be home by 8.  I stood behind the adorable elderly teen couple for quite a while and waited for that dreaded moment.  Finally, it arrived.  “One ticket for Abduction,” I mumbled through the bank robber glass as I slid my debit card and military ID across the counter, indicating that I have served my country and thus deserve to pay matinee prices.  It was probably the most like a pedophile I will ever look, although I’m still young so who knows.  Not even my Walking Dead t-shirt could make me look cool, and holy fuck is that shirt badass.

So what would make me endure the embarrassment and silent pain I did just to watch some shitty action flick?  The fact that it was Abduction.  When I saw the trailer for Abduction I knew instantly I was going to watch it.  I’d been waiting like the proverbial giddy school girl for weeks for this shit to drop because it’s literally every ingredient for a terrible action movie rolled into one.  It reminds me of when I lived in California and Mike and I would put pieces of candy onto a plate and then microwave them.  We’d add new kinds of candy and then repeat.  This went on for months.  I think we were trying to somehow make the ultimate candy, but really we had no fucking clue what we were doing.  You see where this metaphor is going right?

I walked inside and found a seat amongst what I’m positive were at least half the sixteen year-old girls in the country.  Apparently they had been waiting like literal giddy schoolgirls.  Now as I said I was in line for quite a while, so I missed about the first five minutes of the movie.  Because of that I can’t tell you for sure exactly how many minutes into Abduction Taylor Lautner’s shirt comes off, but I can say with certainty that it’s not more than five because he was already bareback when I rushed in and grabbed the only seat left with at least one buffer space between me and another living person.  I could tell this was going to be good.

Taylor Lautner is such an easy target.  He’s the weird kind of attractive you can’t understand.  He doesn’t have a face as much as he does a series of sharp angles.  Aside from that, he looks like he’s in the first movie he’s ever been in in every movie he’s in. He has no talent other than being attractive, flexing his jaw muscles and looking at a 90 degree angle to the camera.  His lines are clunky to begin with and when you factor in his awkward, forced delivery you might as well be listening to meshed wire get shoved through a wood chipper.  The fact that they surrounded him with a pretty talented cast doesn’t do much for him either.

I’m not even close to the first person to notice that Abduction is just a Twilight Barbie Doll that someone banged together with a Jason Bourne GI Joe and pretended they were fucking, although no one else will express it with that same elegance.  A near as I can tell what happened was that someone wrote a movie about a teenager and some spy shit and then someone else followed the genius logic displayed below:

 

1. Abduction has teenagers.

2. Twilight had teenagers.

3. Make Abduction like Twilight.

4. Money.

 

Based on the number of people in the audience they may even be right, but holy shit are the Twilight tropes rampant in this thing.  First off, let’s talk quivering.  That’s all these fucking kids did.  I’ve never seen so many lips tremble.  But don’t worry ladies, there’s plenty of shivering too.  The love interest’s main purpose was to find ways to get wet so Taylor could wrap a blanket around her and look like he loves her but fears he’ll hurt her.  About midway through the movie they make out on a train and it’s the most graphic make out scene I’ve ever seen.  If making out can be pornographic this was.  Don’t watch this in theaters unless you want to know the exact sound a theatre full of tweens makes when they orgasm.  It will haunt your dreams forever.

I managed to wrangle quite a few laughs from this movie.  Pretty much immediately assassins break into his home and shoot his parents.  Taylor takes them out like a badass and then screams at the last one alive.  It’s adorable.  The assassin is clearly dying but delivers this line before he goes:

“You have to run.  There’s a bomb in the oven.”

Taylor runs over and opens the oven.  Sure enough, it’s full of bomb.  Even worse, there’s only EIGHT SECONDS LEFT!  Taylor grabs his girlfriend and they run outside, only to be blown into the family pool by the exploding bomb.  Taylor warms wet girl up.  He’s afraid he’ll hurt her.

Another great laugh comes at the opposite side of the movie, or what we in the Biz call the ‘end.’  Taylor and his girlfriend are sitting in an empty baseball stadium.  They are lovingly talking about how even though they kissed in 8th grade they didn’t go on first date until now, and what a first date it was. Oh, you adorable kids.  By the by, here’s a quick rundown of what happens to Taylor’s character, who as near as I can tell is sixteen years old:

He finds out he was adopted, possibly kidnapped.

His parents are shot to death in front of him.

His house blows up.

He kills a man and throws his lifeless body from a moving train.

His nemesis reveals that he killed Taylor’s biological mom while Taylor was in the room watching.  Taylor has a flashback and remembers all of this.

His biological father kills that guy with a sniper rifle.

His biological father talks to him over a phone, but refuses to meet him, saying he’ll “always be his father, but can’t ever be his dad.”

Taylor sits in an empty baseball stadium and jokes about his crazy first date with his girlfriend.

 

…Do you not get how people work, guys who made Abduction?  By the way, those are all spoilers.  Abduction cracked me up.  I was so thankful to have an older black gentleman sitting nearby that I could commiserate with.  Of course, he was there with his wife and daughter and I was there for who the fuck knows what.  That kind of spoiled it, but I think we bonded anyways.  Still, Make no mistake – this movie is not bagood.  It’s regular bad.  I enjoyed it because I knew it would be terrible and I was right.  Don’t spend your well-earned money on it expecting to laugh like I did, but holy shit, did I ever laugh.  It annoyed the hell out of some tweens.

What you should watch instead: Warrior is still in theaters and to me, it’s a four-star movie.  Don’t worry, it’s not a UFC movie.  It’s an incredible family drama set against the backdrop of MMA.  Literally the first thing you hear is a song by The National, and nothing scares douche bags away faster than The National.

 

Am I right or am I right?  Email all opinions, in the form of a yes or no answer, to [email protected] and explain yourself before you cause pain to yourself.  Or, follow me on Twitter @Dan_Tompkins.  You can shout at me there and as a bonus, I will amuse you.