The Commuter

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. (04/21/2018)

Let me put it mildly and say that the filmmakers didn't do a very good job of making the film. I’ll keep all the curse words to myself. I've never had anything against Liam Neeson. I was there with him when he was rescuing his daughter and wife, or walking over tombstones, and I’ve always been quite satisfied, but I shouldn't have gotten on that train with him. I think an honest tagline for this film could be: How an Aging Insurance Guy Gets Lucky. At least that would have been a red flag for me. Liam Neeson really wasn't up to the role, the plot was stupid and predictable, the ending was incredibly dumb, and I didn’t enjoy this at all. I'm giving it two stars because no trains were harmed during the making of the film. (06/23/2018)

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% (02/08/2018)

I’m surprised that Jaume Collet-Serra keeps on choosing such bad screenplays and then he and Neeson have to hone something sort of watchable out of them. It’s basically a weaker version of Non-Stop when the beginning flirts with Hitchcock-style twist and then makes illogical detours right up to the over the top action finale. Here and there he comes out with an interesting idea, on the other hand, the whole thing seems awfully artificial and digital. Baños’s music is great, however. (04/06/2018)

NON-STOP 2. Again, initially a promisingly mysterious film, which gradually drowns in the strange behavior of probably all the characters, and which Liam Neeson probably didn't enjoy much, either. The big plus was ensured by an absolutely amazing “guitarist" brawl, whilst big minus for the digital finale that wasn't really the finale. (01/19/2018)