Career Rewind: Liam Neeson

Internet!! Americans!! Citizens of the world, the internet, and the whole of Time and Space! And welcome to a day I’m sure many of you thought would never ever come. A second Liam Neeson Thursday. I know, I know you thought it was all just empty bluster and promises as shallow and meaningless as a green puddle in New York the day after St. Patrick’s day. And yet here I stand upon this day, in this place, and here is another day of: Liam Neeson Thursday.

Career Rewind: Liam Neeson

“Micah… I don’t think the Internet is ready for this…”

So we all know that Liam Neeson has spent the last four or five years punching people in the face in as many locations as possible. But how did he begin this epic quest? What was the first step on this punching quest of punchitude? As with previous entries (or more accurately: previous entry) I’m gonna go through his film career from start to finish, skipping to the more interesting movies due to my lack of desire to be here all day.

1978 – Pilgrim’s Progress – and so began a wonderful journey of face punching. Technically Liam played Pilgrim not the main character (Christian.) But still. Not a bad place to start.

Here it is guys: the least awesome picture of Liam Neeson ever.

1981 – Excalibur – Neeson takes his first steps towards face punching by playing Gawain the Green Knight in Excalibur. I’m not entirely sure of the history here but I’m fairly sure Gawain stood on top of the round table and made threatening phone calls to Morgana.

At this point we’ve got a few year gap while Neeson gives his knuckles a rest to play in “A Woman of Substance” and he played a character (and I’m not making this up) named Blackie O’neal… and a movie called “The Good Mother”… He was in a movie called The Dead Pool, but he played a character named Peter Swan… which counteracts the manliness somewhat.

1990 – Darkman – Neeson plays The DARKMAN!!!! Or his alter ego Peyton Westlake. Regardless, it’s a super hero movie!!! Faces are punched… a lot. And those lots of faces are punched a lot. Now that we’re into movies I’ve actually seen and that were made after the date of my birth I can tell you that you probably shouldn’t actually watch Darkman… It’s weird… people get shot… there’s racism… it’s a weird movie. That said: Liam Neeson is awesome.

And this isn’t even the weird part.

1993 – Schindler’s List – And now we get into the big stuff. Neeson plays Oskar Schindler (because Oscar was apparently too well spelled) and Oskar Schindler punches Nazi!!!!! Or something… I may have blocked out certain finer points of Schindler’s List because it was SAD!!! With sad music and sad stuff… and sad Liam Neeson. I can’t…. I can’t take it.

1996 – Michael Collins – First off: if you haven’t seen Michael Collins you should go watch it now. Michael Collins is the story of the early IRA fighting against Britain and the escalation of the conflict between the two and then there’s Alan Rickman who is awesome and then there’s the SAD sick STUPID green nasty cherry on top that is Julia Roberts MURDERING an irish accent… not that I’m bitter. Seriously though… it’s a great movie.

1998 – Les Miserables – this is still my favorite version of this story. It’s not a musical, it tells a fairly grounded story, it stars Liam Neeson and NOWHERE is there a song of angry men!! It’s a huge win!! Plus Geofrey Rush!! Get on the good train people!

“Go ahead… sing. I dare you.”

1999- Star Wars Episode 1 – probably Liam’s real “big break” though ironically the movie itself is (obviously) not remembered super fondly. Honestly knowing what we know about Liam Neeson now it seems kind of a waste of his awesome Jedi potential… can we somehow bring him back in for Episode 7???

2005 – Kingdom of Heaven – Here’s the thing about Kingdom of Heaven: it’s a movie where Orlando Bloom must defend a city because his father (Liam Neeson) asks him to on his deathbed. The movie really shows exactly how awesome Liam Neeson is because as soon as Liam Neeson dies… that movie sucks. A lot. It’s a line of desuckation and the lines starts right after Liam Neeson closes his eyes.

2005 – Batman Begins – And this is it folks: Liam Neeson TRAINS BATMAN!!! I’m done. I win. Thank you. Goodnight.

2005 – The Chronicles of Narnia – Also: ASLAN!!! Batman. Aslan. Let’s all go home.

2008 – Taken – And this my friends is the continuation and the ultimate proof of the awesomeness of Liam Neeson. Taken. Aslan. Batman.

2008-2014 – I’m just gonna start summarizing here because the awesome is starting to spill out onto the floor. Between 2008 and today we’ve got Batman (again) Taken 2 (less convincing story. Same amount of awesome face punching) Unknown, Wrath of the Titans (wherein he played ZEUS!!) The Lego Movie (hilarious), The Grey (conceptually the saddest thing I have ever watched in my life) and Non-stop.

Liam Neeson everyone. I rest. My case.