The other two big openers this week were I Am Number Four and that Big Mommas movie, opening at 2nd and 5th place, respectively. That sound you hear is a collective sigh of relief that it wasn’t Big Mommas at number 2, since we probably would have seen a movie with Liam Neeson kicking ass in drag if that had happened. Or is that a sigh of disappointment? (The AV Club)

The one possible bright spot is that the script is being written by Steven Knight, who did the script for the fantastic Russian gangster movie Eastern Promises. So maybe this will be more like that and less like Orphan. Grooaaaaannn. (via Deadline)

Unknown is not just a mediocre action movie. It’s actually bad. The thinking must have been: Liam Neeson was awesome in Taken. Let’s put him in another one. What have we got?

We meet Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Liz (January Jones) vaguely enough as a traveling couple on an airplane and checking into a hotel. Not so close that we assume too much, but definitely established as a couple. Then Martin has to go back to the airport because he left a bag there. Isn’t that the plot of Police Academy V? I mean, without the suitcase switch, but come on!

Martin’s cab has an accident, he wakes up in the hospital and when he goes back to the hotel, Liz doesn’t recognize him and there’s another Dr. Harris (Aidan Quinn). Was everything we saw before a false memory? No, there are dudes trying to kill him so he has to beat them up.

The story only needs to be enough to set up the chase, but it is aggressively stupid. The details that make Martin suspicious are blatantly contrived. He tries to check back into the Eisenhower suite because he wasn’t there when the clerk told Liz it was booked. Martin tries to prove he’s the real Dr. Harris while the imposter recites the exact same backstory simultaneously. It’s like grown men playing that childish game of repeating everything the other one says.

It travels on such a cliché arc, it’s like an episode of “South Park” spoofing a movie like Unknown. When he sees the new Dr. Harris’s photo at the university website, the music practically booms: “Da dun duuuuuuuh!” Also, the U.S. Embassy is closed for Thanksgiving so he can’t clear anything up. Oh, and when the first knock at the door is a friend, the second knock is obviously the bad guys so check the peep hole before you assume your friend came back.

The danger is so banal. Martin escapes from a hospital half drugged by bad guys. It’s more of a stumble than a chase. There’s a crowbar fight, so if men whacking each other with metal rods sounds exciting, this is the movie for you. A car chase through Berlin is no more than a few collisions strung together. In one scene, a villain hides in a van just waiting for a stunt to happen. What’s he hanging around for? He could just get away!

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the film is so focused on how an organization could perpetrate this deception. The how is not interesting. What’s interesting is what it does to someone when their memory is questioned and their life is replaced. Unknown doesn’t explore that (it doesn’t count when Martin gets mad. He doesn’t reflect.) Unknown only uses memory as the plot needs, so Martin can remember a combination at the right time or something, never to build any real suspense.

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Cast: Liam Neeson, January Jones, Diane Kruger, Frank Langella

Synopsis: A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is.

Release Date: February 18, 2011

In the new poster for Unknown, Liam Neeson tries to cover up horrible acne scars and/or the dark side of his soul. Depends on how deep you want to get with it. Seriously though, was the actual Liam Neeson not available and they built a wax version then slid a cardboard box panel over half of a spotlight to shoot him? Oh you think they used something more advanced than that, like Photoshop. But why would a professional graphic artist use his skills in Photoshop to make Liam Neeson look like a deformed tunnel dweller? Our photoshops of Michael Bay placed into anything and everything look more realistic. (/Film)

_{Liam Neeson in suspended animation.}

Warner Bros. has dropped the new trailer for Unknown. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax), it stars Liam Neeson as a guy who wakes from a coma and discovers that someone has taken is identity and not even his hot wife (January Jones) believes him. He teams up with a hot cab driver (Diane Kruger), who originally put him in the coma by crashing into a lake, to help him make sense of the whole mess. Neeson kicks some ass in it Taken-style, so despite the whole clichéd "why does no one recognize me!" premise, it could be worth checking out.

Unknown wanders into theaters February 18, 2011.

Check out the trailer after the jump…

Unknown — Trailer – Watch more Movie Trailers