Room (2015)

I dug Emma Donoghue’s smash-hit book “Room,” The film, with a screenplay by Donoghue herself, is actually -– get this -– even better. Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is newly 5 and desperately curious about life, but his world is the interior of a backyard shed. He is a prisoner, as is his mother (Brie Larson), held by a man known as “Old Nick.” Ma was taken 7 years before off the street, and has since lived in solitude, her only companion a child by rape. Ma adores Jack, her salvation. But Ma’s soothing lies are unraveling, as is her sanity as Jack grows and Room seems to shrink. “Room” is horrifying in its depiction of the hovel, the effect of rape, malnutrition, isolation, and claustrophobia, before it really turns the screws after. Larson and Tremblay do a masterful job of telegraphing every pain and small joy, and its Donoghue’s dialogue that sells it. Sparse. Sharp. Smart. Even more so than the book, Donoghue and director Lenny Abrahamson know trauma stays with us, it cannot be fully shaken, it destroys families, splits parents. Easy answers? None. Larson and Tremblay deserve every accolade coming. Donoghue, too. A

Stolen (2012)

If Liam Neeson from “Taken” showed up in Nicolas Cage’s my-daughter’s-been-kidnapped thriller “Stolen,” the movie would have lasted 15 minutes. But he doesn’t. Cage plays Will, a master thief who sees life get worse after an eight year stint in prison. Case 1: Cops are on him like creepy on a Southern politician. Case 2: His presumed dead ex-partner (Josh Lucas) is out for revenge, snatching said daughter. The plot centers around taxi cabs. Lucas’ thug tools around in one. Will steals another. Why? No idea. Up against the always unhinged Cage, Lucas seems to have taken the villain role as a one-up challenge. After the prologue, he sports greasy surfer hair, a lazy eye, shaving scars, rotten teeth, an emphysemic cough, and a fake leg. He screams and growls every line. If this freak dropped into a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, he’d get strange looks. Cage reacts by talking Swedish. Seriously. The climax of this Simon West flick one-ups the actors with a fight to the death not seen since “Freddy vs. Jason.” At an abandoned amusement park. Zany. Crazy. Terrible. Laughable. Grotesque. Better than the “Taken” sequel. C-

Taken 2 (2012)

“Taken 2” is pure GOP values: ’Merica is pure and strong, and every last Muslim is an evil perv-o killer, and women are helpless creatures who cannot drive a car or plan a vacation without male supervision. Fox News would endorse it. The themes are serious, I think. Liam Neeson again plays the ex-CIA agent who shoots,stabs, stomps, and rips apart dozens of evil foreigners to save his daughter (Maggie Grace) and now kidnapped wife (Famke Janssen) from slavery. We’re in Turkey and Islam looms like a disease, and every person of color -– be it police to hotel clerk -- is part of the conspiracy. Fox News. It’s all less than 90 minutes, so the trip is mercifully short, and Neeson is fast becoming a thinking man’s Chuck Norris, even if the thinking is fascist and WASP. To get a PG-13, director Olivier Megaton (his real name?) goes bloodless and when necks break in Neeson’s fists, we hear no sound because snapping bone is somehow more offensive than gunfire. The editing is terrible, and so  is the slant that Neeson (wonderful actor) is taking onscreen. D+