Take this

Much like sex, one of the secrets to building an explosive climax in any great film is a great pace.

The film must have the ability to flow naturally, hold the audience's attention and deliver on all that it was building towards. In an action movie, pacing can literally make or break a film. Fortunately for fans of the genre, Taken manages to do almost everything right.

Taken stars Liam Neeson (The Other Man) as Bryan Mills, an ex-CIA agent who has retired in order to spend more time with his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, The Fog). Mills hardly gets to see her because she lives with his ex-wife (Famke Janssen, The Wackness).

Soon after Kim's 17th birthday, she plans a European vacation with her friend. While on the phone with her father in Paris, Kim and her companion get kidnapped. Using his contacts in the CIA, Mills immediately leaves for Paris to find his daughter and kill the men who kidnapped her.

Sure, this setup has been done a hundred times before. But these days, complaining about lack of originality in movies is like using a treadmill - it's something to do, but nobody's getting anywhere. All that matters anymore is how well it is done.

Taken handles quite well. The camerawork during the numerous fight scenes is exceptional. The scenes are fast-paced and frenetic, but they are never so disorienting that the viewer can't distinguish what's going on.

The actors, on the other hand, may create a problem for moviegoers. While no one is particularly miscast, nearly everyone onscreen appears disinterested every time they open their mouths. Even Neeson, who could make reading a dictionary sound interesting, seems like he would have more fun doing just that than reciting his lines.

Arguably, the most genuine performance is that of Maggie Grace as Kim, whose screen time is sadly limited. The young actress has a lot of talent and showcases it here. At the risk of sounding sadistic and cruel, the scene where she is kidnapped is one of the film's real treats.

That being said, people who choose to dwell on the hackneyed plot and indifferent acting would be missing the point. Neeson still manages to put on a noteworthy performance, based on the physical stress he must have gone through preparing for the role. The 56-year-old actor is quite convincing as an aging, yet agile ex-agent.

Mills is actually a pretty lucky guy aside from the fact that his daughter has been kidnapped. The copious coincidences that bring him closer to his goal are almost as abundant as the fistfights that permeate the movie. While they don't add anything to the enjoyment, they don't take anything away and keep the film moving at an exciting pace.

As Mills' luck would have it, he actually has a small voice sample of the kidnapper. During his plane ride to Paris, he plays the clip over and over again, burning the sound into his brain. And everyone in the audience knows that he'll run into this man in the near future and recognize his voice.

This short scene essentially sets the stage for the rest of the film. It does an excellent job of showing how committed the hero is to his job and how he is even more committed to his daughter. From there, it's the action-packed movie it should be and hardly ever stops.

As expected, the aforementioned shortcomings primarily occur when the movie does stop for air. While these pauses allow the audience to catch up, the majority of them are relatively uninteresting and water down an otherwise great action film.

However, the sheer amount of action more than makes up for whatever downtime there is. And despite the rather abrupt ending and the fact that bad guys should spend more time practicing how to aim a gun, Taken is a well-done, competent film.