Solid Action with Gaping Plot holes

Rating: 5/10 (22 January 2013)

The spoilers are very minor, and only available to explain what went wrong.
The original Taken was a fantastic movie with great action and dialog. Unfortunately taken 2 fails to fill the shoes of its great predecessor.
The main story follows the events after the first movie, as the father of the kidnapper who died while Bryan Mills was saving his daughter, now wants revenge.
An excellent premise for a movie, yet as the story unfolds you are left holding a lot of loose knots. Heavily focused story elements are left unfinished. An essentially it feels as if parts of the script just went messing and no one noticed. The only redeeming quality is probably the action, as even the acting for the other characters are sub par.
Lets start from the beginning. As you know Bryan Mills lives the life of a retired agent, trying to make his living body guarding and doing what ever job comes his way. His marriage is broken and his kid essentially ignores him. Yet you would think after the fact her father went across the world and found her in the middle of no where and saved her from a sex ring she would be a bit more appreciative. Yet her attitude essentially remains the same as the first movie. All of a sudden out of no where the wife's second marriage is failing for no reason, the daughter has a boyfriend. None of these elements are further explored and simply mentioned hoping to add ambiance to the story. Yet they focus so heavily on it, just to drop it and never mention it again, is just a bit of lazy writing.
Finally when the main plot starts, things start making sense for a few minutes. Then all hell breaks loose as the daughter ends up becoming a professional drifter and driver in a period of 10 seconds. Yet failed her driving test 2 years in a row. Not to mention a professional sprinter with the ability to run across roofs and leaping tall bounds. At this point i was expecting her to rip off her shirt and see an S on white spandex, maybe even Lex Luther as the final mastermind. Luckily the lawyers probably advised against licensing superman into the story. But the oddities don't end there. Near the end of the story this massive element which results in them entering the embassy is shown. After that, they just drop it like a hot potato and play it as if nothing happened. Its almost as if the director lost parts of the script, and just shot the movie with what ever pages were remaining.
Is this movie worth watching? yes The biggest issue is, don't think when watching this movie. See the beautiful scenic images of Constantinople. Watch the shiny VFX and be happy. If you try to make sense of the story you probably will end up hating it. An unfortunately yes - there seems to be a plot line remaining to make a Taken 3.