Last week, Liam Neeson announced that he would most likely be quitting action movies in 2 years. Today, we mourn the oncoming loss that will be his retirement from action extravaganzas. I can understand why Neeson is planning this: he is 62 right now and is acknowledging that eventually his body will give out on him. But here’s the thing, Neeson, I will happily pay to watch you kick ass until you are in a wheelchair, and then for a few more years after that.
There have been few career arcs more fascinating to watch than Liam Neeson’s immediate ascent to Hollywood’s most bankable action star at the prime age of 56. With one threatening monologue over the phone in 2008’s Taken, he became THE action star. There was no doubt, no moment of pause – this was official.
Liam Neeson is also one of the most simply watchable action stars out there. Every line he speaks carries a gripping sense of urgency, and the fact that he actually performs his own fight scenes goes a long way to establish his credibility. When Liam Neeson kicked ass, you believed his was kicking it and gained an indescribable thrill from it. Let me put it to you this way, since Neeson became our ruler his lowest grossing film had a worldwide gross of $130 million with Unknown. That’s Neeson on a bad day. On any other day he’s raking in upwards of $200 million worldwide. That is action stardom right there.
But alas, all good things must come to an end. We must say goodbye to the prospect of like 6 more Taken films. Liam Neeson still has a remake of The Escapist coming up, and hopefully he’ll manage to fit in some more ass-kicking roles before the clock runs out. We must savor these last few action roles like the treasures that they are. We have to make Run All Night the highest grossing movie of all time to say thank you to Neeson. While today is a time to ready ourselves for the oncoming loss, it’s also time to be grateful we got to witness “Hollywood’s Most Bankable Action Star” Liam Neeson for as long as we did. Thank you, Liam Neeson, we will never forget the ass you kicked.
