At this stage, we can surely all agree that the time is right for Liam Neeson to finally make good on his word and permanently retire from action thrillers, because duds like Blacklight continue making it clearer and clearer that his glory days of running and gunning are well and truly behind him.
Not only did his reunion with Honest Thief director Mark Williams tank spectacularly at the box office by way of earning only $11 million from theaters on a budget said to be hovering around the $43 million mark, but an 11 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes saw it gain the unwanted distinction of being dubbed the worst-reviewed movie of its leading man’s entire career.
That’s right; it isn’t just Neeson’s most widely-panned beat ’em up, but it ended up at the very bottom of the pile in general. That’s not a great look for somebody with a filmography that stretches back decades, especially when the evidence is piling up that he really has gone full Danny Glover and gotten too old for this sh*t.
Naturally, he’s got several more identikit projects lined up and coming down the pipeline, and despite the quality taking a drastic nosedive over the last few years, people keep on watching them on streaming, even if they aren’t exactly turning up to the multiplex in massive numbers.
To that end, Blacklight is currently one of the Top 10 most-watched films on Paramount Plus in the United States (per FlixPatrol), with Neeson’s particular set of skills faring much better on-demand than they have on the big screen.