OK, but not as good as its predecessor

Rating: 7/10 (10 October 2012)

Four years ago, Brian Mills (Liam Neeson) rescued his kidnapped daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) from sex slavery by virtue of slaughtering vast numbers of Albanian human traffickers in the unexpected (and now somewhat iconic) hit Taken. Now it seems that the patriarch of the deceased Balkan hordes is of a mind to apply some retribution to Brian by seizing him, Kim, and (ex-)wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) prior to killing them horribly in reverse order.
This no more than a fairly minor variation on the first movie. That doesn't mean it isn't entertaining, of course, but it does mean it's not very original. One of the things I loved about the original is that, while Brian was very focused on his love for his daughter, in many respects he was not a very nice man: there was no room for gentlemanliness in his quest for Kim. Not a believer in human rights, he was brutal in his treatment of those who would seek to profit from the sale of his daughter. While Taken 2 is violent, I get the feel that the edge has been taken off in order to widen the certification (the first film appeared on DVD in a less stringent cut than that which visited cinemas). Also, Brian's position as kidnappee puts him on the defensive for a goodly chunk of the film, when he should be the active protagonist (although he is far from helpless). And there is nothing which comes close to Brian's wonderful telephone speech in the first film.
For all that, this is a tolerable action thriller, but it doesn't come close to the first film.