Your typical follow-up

Rating: 6/10 (29 September 2012)

Bryan(Neeson) is in Istanbul, when suddenly, his ex and daughter show up... the combination of females and a foreign country immediately causes a villain(Serbedzija, who tries and fails to be particularly intimidating or memorable) to materialize(as well as a revenge story), and abductions occur. As you can probably already tell from what I describe, this goes for a more mainstream Hollywood feel(and if you make the "brilliant" counterpoint that it's made by Frenchmen, I will have to slap you... we're talking about the approach, it doesn't need to actually come out of the US), not daring to take chances, in spite of that being the strength of the first one(this one has a bit fewer surprises), presumably to ensure profits by being blander(and thus inoffensive). We now have scenes that we've seen before in this genre, playing out the way we'd expect them to. On the plus side, this does still keep the pace fast(if the energy dies out and is then revived somewhat, several times... it's already a tired premise, they really should have left it at just one movie), the rampant misogyny of the original is gone, the dark tone is maintained yet with a little humor(keeping it from being as unpleasant), based around the obsessive nature of our retired CIA operative lead. And the action is mostly good, sometimes great and intense. The so-swift-you-only-barely-perceive-it cutting is now reserved for the hand-to-hand combat, and there are more chases and shootouts, which get very dumb and boring at times. The female characters are written better, they feel like human beings. Lenore(Janssen) is no longer an insufferable bitch(this one can actually see things from her side!), and Kim(Grace) is downright active and important, not to mention that you can feel the mental scarring of the events of the '08 one, along with increased maturity and her still being an upbeat person(they also sexualize her, showing off Maggie's delicious bod... very Shannon, in that regard), and she does nice acting in it. The filming is not as solid with the loss of the director Morel(an expert cinematographer), and Megaton(badass name by the way) moves the camera excessively, causing the viewers to lose focus of where people are in relation to each other, taking us out of it. There is a lot of PG-13(because this is what you want 13-year-olds watching) violence and mild language and a tad of disturbing content and blood. I recommend this to those who want more of "the same", even if it's inferior. 6/10