everyone seemed to hate it

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2013)

For a movie people seem to hate, Taken 2 managed somehow to gross $376 million at the box office worldwide, with a $45 million budget, which is more money than Taken made. Often when a film is bad, the first audiences will say, "don't waste your time," but that didn't seem to happen.
The original cast is back: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, and Leland Orser. We left Taken with Bryan (Neeson) and his ex-wife (Lenore) becoming friends again. Now Lenore and her husband have separated and he's canceled a huge family trip. Bryan invites her and Kim to come with him to Istanbul. Talk about a mistake.
Murad (Rade Sherbedgia), the father of one of the kidnappers killed by Bryan, wants revenge and sets out to kidnap the entire family. His team of merry men manage to get Bryan and Lenore, but Maggie, warned by her father, escapes. Once he's kidnapped and he and Lenore are left alone, he manages to get some part of his phone and give her instructions. After what she went through in Taken, I don't know how she kept so together. I would have been a zombie.
Anyway, there's an enormous car chase that I thought was pretty neat and suspenseful.
I certainly agree this is no "Taken," and the script was slapped together when the first film made so much money. It's pretty flimsy. It's not terrible.