Taken:part 2

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2013)

After having had lots of fun watching the tough and fast moving first Taken,I was pleased to discover that the second movie in the series has just been brought out on DVD,which lead to me getting ready to find out who Bryan Mills takes on this time.
The plot:
Arriving to his ex-wife Lenore's house so that he can give their daughter Kim (who he a few years ago rescued from being kidnapped) a driving lesson,former covert operative Bryan Mills finds out that his daughter has forgotten about the appointment,due to instead deciding to pay a visit to the house where her new boyfriend lives,a boyfriend who she has not told her dad about.
Fearing that a gap is developing between himself and Kim,and also feeling saddened over Lenore being up set over her current partner leaving her,Mills decides that the best way to deal with all of the troubles that he and his ex-wife are facing,is for all of them to go on a relaxing holiday to Turkey.
Cheerful about seeing a smile back on Lenore's face whilst also doing his best to doge Kim's attempts at "reuniteing" both of them,Mills begins to fear that the holiday will turn out to be far from relaxing,when he begins to notice gangs circling in on his family,who seem to have a connection to people that attempted to kidnap his daughter.
View on the film:
Keeping away from the route that I had originally expected them to take,of creating a stand alone follow-up,the screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen cleverly connect the two parts together by showing the faces of the families from the "nameless thugs" that Mills had to kill in the first one in order to save his daughter, which leads to the villains all having a purpose and a real meaning to the story.
Along with giving the baddies a background motive,Besson and Kamen move away from the man on a mission outline of the first one,to instead make it a family affair,which despite leading to some rather silly moments, (the best way to locate someone?,throw a grenade!) does leads to Mills quest to save his family feeling much more motivated and stronger than it was in the first one.
Replacing part one's director Pierre Morel,director Oliver Megaton (what a last name!),gives the stunning Istanbul location a dusty,pastel like appearance which leads to the scenes where each of the family members are struggling to locate an important building,to look as if the buildings are some sort of mirage.Disapointingly,despite the budget being 20 million more than the first one,Megaton sadly lacks the clear sheen that Pierre Morel displayed which helped to make each of the action scenes so thrilling,with Megaton instead taking a "chopy" approach to the action scenes,which leads to them feeling oddly weak due to him not allowing the camera to pull back and get a full picture of the action going on.
Along with Liam Nesson giving a wonderful,gruff performance,Famke Janssen gives a terrific performance that is a huge improvement on her rather 2 dimensional one in the first one,with Janssen showing real warmth in her scenes between Kim and Bryan,and also showing Lenore trying to stay when fear strikes,as Lenore reveals that she will not be "taken" for granted.