Garbage! Simple as!

Rating: 1/10 (10 October 2012)

Liam Neeson returns as Bryan Mills, the retired CIA agent with a particular set of skills who stopped at nothing to save his daughter Kim from Albanian kidnappers. When the father of one of the kidnappers swears revenge and takes Bryan and his wife hostage during their family vacation in Istanbul, Bryan enlists Kim to help them escape, and uses the same advanced level of special forces tactics to get his family to safety and systematically take out the kidnappers one by one.
The first Taken film came flying out of nowhere and surprised a lot of people with its success. Neeson himself has stated that he thought Taken would go straight to DVD. But it didn't and is now regarded as an action classic.
It was only inevitable that Taken would spawn a sequel, so now we have Taken 2. And as usual the questions were asked if this would rival the brilliant action and suspense of the first film. I myself had doubts that this would be as good, if not better than the Taken. The trailer was decent enough and the early buzz from independent critics was positive.
I've now seen the film. It's one of the worst films of the year. I'll go one further, IT'S ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!! Taken may very well have been destined for DVD hell, but did well enough to surprise everyone who saw it. Taken 2 does nothing but rehash the same formula, but without the gritty edge the first film had. So this time round Neeson and Famke Jannsen are taken and it's up to Kim (Maggie Grace) to rescue them. Big deal! This just didn't work for me. If the story were different, maybe excluding the wife and daughter altogether, then we could've done so many other things with Neeson's character. He could've been recruited by a billionaire to find his children or maybe take the Jack Bauer route and uncover a secret government conspiracy, which would still involve a lot of ass kicking and taking names. But we have this story with both him and his ex -wife, kidnapped by some Albanians and taken to some basement in Istanbul to await interrogation. So what happens? Nesson manages to escape, with his daughters help, leaving his ex -wife to fend for herself. He hatches a plan to go back and rescue his ex from the bunch of Albanian bad guys, who by the way, are seeking revenge against Neeson for killing their relatives in the first film. Madness!
Performances are OK. Neeson is picking up a paycheck so he doesn't look bothered. Famke Janssen just exists and throws in a few screams here and there. Maggie Grace as Kim is given a bit more to do this time round. I felt she did well to handle the physical aspects of the role. But now knowing she's a thirty-something year old woman playing a teenager, I wasn't convinced of her performances as I was the first time around. The standout performer is Rade erbedija, who is the best thing about Taken 2. Regardless of the poor script, he handles the dialogue brilliantly and the veteran actor makes his presence known as the main antagonist.
Taken 2 fails in so many areas – it's almost funny because the film plays like a sitcom at times. Dialogue is laughable, making constant references to the first film. The film drags for the first half hour and when the action finally does kick in, it's mediocre and shoddy. The fight scenes are also shockingly bad. Oliver Megaton, or Megatron as he's known, seems to have received his tutelage in direction from the Paul Greengrass School. Only difference is that Greengrass knows how to edit his fight scenes. It's all blurry action – you can hardly see what the hell is going on! Batman Begins suffered from the same thing. Thank God Nolan wised up. Megaton doesn't have a clue when it comes to filming action set pieces. He did the same thing with the awful Colombiana, which unfortunately found its way into Top 10 worst films from last year.
Taken 2 is an absolute disappointment! A poor story, crap script, mediocre action, shoddy direction, tired performances and it's longer than the first film.
Title for the most disappointing film of the year goes to Taken 2. Mind you, the critical reviews haven't hurt it's box office takings. Meaning they'll definitely be a Taken 3. Which is fine, as long as they up the viewing certificate back to 15 and get rid of Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace and give Leland Orser, who played the ex CIA computer wiz in the first film, more of a featured role in the next one. He was tragically wasted in this.
Avoid! Catch it on Netflix