“Abduction” PG-13 — Teen fans of Taylor Lautner’s conflicted werewolf Jacob Black in the teen vampire “Twilight” films (all PG-13s, so far) may want to catch him in this contrived and convoluted thriller. If they pay matinee prices, they won’t feel too shortchanged, and it’s OK fare for most teens.
Lautner’s acting range hasn’t grown much beyond sullen and more sullen, but that works well enough with this story. High-schooler Nathan (Lautner) has always felt like an outsider, alienated from fellow students and even his nice parents Mara (Maria Bello) and Kevin (Jason Isaacs).
He longs for Karen (Lily Collins), the teen beauty across the street, from afar. When they’re assigned to do a research paper together about missing children, Nathan accidentally sees a baby picture of himself on the Internet. Further digging sets off a sudden series of violent events, starting with the murder of the couple he thought were his parents.
Soon Nathan and Karen are on the run, trying to outsmart the killers and decide whether to trust the CIA man (Alfred Molina) who keeps calling them, or Nathan’s longtime therapist (Sigourney Weaver), who is not who he thought she was. The reasons for all this — stolen state secrets — are murky and implausible, but a good excuse for sending a buff teen hero on the run with a pretty girl.
THE BOTTOM LINE: The action features startling but not overly bloody shooting deaths, a number of bone-cracking fights. There is teen drunkenness, occasional mild-to-midrange profanity and mild sexual innuendo and a steamy kiss.
