Do you like mindless cliches? Then you’ll love the new not-so-thrilling action movie Abduction, starring Taylor Lautner.

Nathan soon finds out that his parents are actually C.I.A.-appointed guardians, and witnesses their murders at the hands of mercenaries. He escapes with his friend Karen (Lily Collins) and they run around the city trying to evade the killers, along with the help of his psychiatrist (Sigourney Weaver). The C.I.A. informs him that his real father has a top secret list of names wanted by both the government and, surprise surprise, a Serbian mobster, so Nathan take it upon himself to protect the list.

There was so much unrealistic acting from everyone in the movie. A bunch of dramatic sighs and showy head turns. I felt like I was watching an annoying soap opera.  Lautner (Twilight) is not a good actor, I don’t care how much you like his werewolf. A kid who sees his parents killed in front of him tends to be sad, angry, horrified, shocked, etc., and he most likely won’t be making out a girl on a train. Lautner just stood there and acted out his cues to look sad blandly. Everyone else was exactly the same way, and it was just painful to watch.

The director (John Singleton) wasn’t even credited in the movie, probably because he was ashamed of this production. The point of a director is to direct the cast and crew to make something worthwhile. I was very disappointed when I found out Singleton directed this; I expected way better from him. Four Brothers and 2 Fast 2 Furious were pretty good, and Abduction just falls flat in comparison to them…or any movie really.

I would just like to point out that the movie had nothing to do with abduction, so why name it that? Why not call it Adoption, since that was a huge deal in the movie. There were so many completely unnecessary twists and bits. In one scene, Nathan beats up a killer wearing glasses. After pummeling him to unconsciousness and throwing him off a moving train, he steps on his glasses with forceful determination. Did they really need all of that? Lautner’s martial arts training was shown off here, but it couldn’t even distract me from the nonsense story. As well as having unneeded plots, Abduction was also obnoxiously unrealistic. For example, at one point, two C.I.A. agents are playing dead when snipers come to check the bodies. I’m no doctor, but doesn’t death by gunfire usually result in some blood? And the C.I.A. itself was made out to be some way-too-high tech center for world domination run by Dr. Evil.

Abduction is just sloppy. Nothing more to say; it was just plain bad. Bad story, bad acting, bad directing, bad everything! Do not waste your time and money on this terrible movie.

Abduction is rated PG-13.

Jack Thornton contributed to this review/article.