When did he have time to buy a leather jacket?

Rating: 5/10 (17 October 2012)

Liam Neeson's cult hero, ex-CIA Agent Bryan Mills returns with his leather jacket to terminate another band of scumbags, who are seeking revenge for the zillions he dispensed with Steven Segal-style in 2008's 'Taken'.
This time the ethnic cleansing occurs in Istanbul, where Mills invites his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) and his ex, Lenore (Famke Jannsen) to escape the stress of their lavish lifestyle. When mum and dad are abducted, Kim (who has admirably recovered from the trauma of being sex-trafficked in the first film) takes surreptitious instructions from dad about how to find them so that he can 'do what he does best'.
Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen stay on as screenwriters, but Olivier Megaton, whose claim to shame was that he helmed 'Transporter 3', replaces Pierre Morel as director. First mistake. The second mistake these three men make is to hint that Neeson is too old. True, he turned 60 this year, but with moves like his you wouldn't accept anyone else as back up.
The third mistake is the substitution of explosions for emotions. My heart sank when they reduced the certificate from '15' to the dreaded '12A'; a clear signal that the violence would be softened and the death tally lowered. You can bet your life there'll be more sequels, so why not leave this mushy plot for number five?
Spurred on by songs from the 'Drive' soundtrack, Kim intrepidly goes in search of her parents, but not without blowing up half of Turkey and its denizens in the process. I was so proud of her. She hadn't yet passed her driving test, or got to make out properly with her boyfriend and look what her security-conscious father was making her do. This is the fourth and most inexcusable mistake.
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