Abduction

Director: John Singleton
Starring: Taylor Lautner, Alfred Molina, Maria Bello
Time Out rating:
Japanese title: Missing ID

Imagine Transformers without the Transformers, and that’s Abduction, a production-line tween thriller from once promising director John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood). It stars Taylor Lautner, the rippling, dead-eyed mannequin who made his mark in the Twilight films and whose inspiration seems to be the young Schwarzenegger. He’s a dirtbike-riding, beer-chugging, mixed-martial artist bad boy of suburban Pittsburgh, and then one evening, while surfing abduction websites (as you do), he spots a picture of his younger self. Next thing he knows, there are gun-toting hoods at his door threatening to kill all his Facebook friends, so it’s a big ol’ cross-country chase to find his real identity, with the cheerleader from across the street in tow. While the ultra-banal dialogue draws the occasional titter, the action scenes are tame and it’s rife with plot holes that you could navigate a burning blimp through.

Abduction opens nationwide on June 1