Be careful - your money will be TAKEN !!

Rating: 4/10 (15 October 2012)

Taken 2 is another example of a greedy producer who wants to milk the success of the first movie, knows that there should not be a sequel and tries to maximize profits by hiring dumb writers who have never been outside US.
I have been to Istambul and it has almost nothing to do what we saw in the movie. OK, the Bosphorus and the mosques are there and that's it. People don't behave that way and the movie is full of flaws which makes it look like a comedy.
In one of the scenes, father and daughter are in a boat and he starts telling her that the waterway separates Europe and Asia and it has been used for more than 2500 years, blah blah. And she asks how he knows all of that. The answer, which is probably the same as the source of the research writers and director did for this movie, was that he read it in a guide book in the plane on the way there.
Anyway, the flaws have been pointed by several other reviews but what most annoyed me was the lack of depth in the scenes and characters. What happened to the realism of the first movie?
When the girl started detonating grenades on the rooftops of the most touristic area of Istambul so her father could accurately say how far she was from where he was being held captive, a lot of people in the theater started laughing.
Save your money, and wait for the DVD in case you are really curious about it.