Grenade sonar

Rating: 4/10 (25 February 2019)

This review contains spoilers.
Taken 2 is the sequel to 2008's Taken. The movie is an action thriller film that is directed by Olivier Megaton and written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. The movie takes place some time after the first Taken movie and stars the same cast. The movie has the Albanians from the first movie returning to exact revenge on Bryan Mills and his family.
Taken 2 features the tight action from the original movie in its 91 minute running time. This time however, the money is not as fresh or intelligently executed. Bryan Mills and his wife are taken which causes his daughter to assist in their rescue. The entire movie feels so contrived as the movie finds reasons to continue the running time. The story's beginning feels like a terrible introduction. The Albanians want revenge and nothing else. They decide to take the entire family when they know Bryan was separated from his wife. It is an amazingly contrived situation that the Mills family decided to go on a vacation in Istanbul when the Albanians sought revenge.
This is not the only deficiency in the writing. The writing has strange scenes. Somehow Bryan Mills carries around high explosive grenades in his briefcase. The grenades are used for Bryan to find the location where he is kidnapped. This scene has grenades being thrown into public areas in Istanbul to utilize sound location. This scene is not the only immersion breaking scene. The movie has Bryan Mills, and his daughter drive into the United States embassy as they are being shot at. For some reason, the movie thought that this was the best option rather than have the scene play out normally. These scenes changed how I will see the Taken franchise. There is simply so many poorly executed scenes that hold down the rest of the movie.
Liam Neeson is still great in the role of Bryan Mills. I do not see any large flaws except the ridiculous scenes he became involved in. He did a good job but I wish he had stopped the ridiculous scenes from playing out. It made the movie tough to watch.
I would not recommend 'Taken 2.'
Grade: D