Taken 2:retaken

Rating: 6/10 (27 December 2012)

Spoilers ahead so beware******
The original Taken was a pretty refreshing back to basics popcorn movie about how far a father would go for his daughter. I loved the original & looked forward to this one. I thought it was going to be the sheik from the original relatives who would be exacting revenge, it turned out to be the sex slave peddlers relatives out for "justice".
OK let's get the bad stuff out if the way...
1.The Albanians speak English all the time.. In the 1st movie he had to hire a translator & important plot point in original hinged on the pronounciation of a certain phrase. In this they just chat in English to save the audience from reading subtitles.
2.I have never seen a stand off in a movie where the character in threat is allowed to make a phone call ... And the call is to warn the other person in danger.. They just kind of stand there and let him finish the call.
3.if kidnapping someone who has singlehandedly wiped out a small task force in the previous movie... Make sure you keep someone watching him & maybe search him and also use something stronger than plastic to tie him up. The boss essentially said to him "you have half an hour to try and escape" we are all going to leave and go upstairs to watch TV..."
4.As soon as Kim started driving the taxi , I knew the movie would end with her passing her driving test. Also she is an amazing driver under pressure , she should have easily passed 1st time.
5. What's the point in having secret agent friends if they never help you out when your in trouble... Surely they should have got a shot in this one to rescue their friend .. Instead all they got to do was eat barbecue and play golf. 5.1 On that note ,he tried to phone the agent friend at the beginning but couldn't get him... But at the end it turns out he had his mobile number. Why didn't he phone the US Embassy.
6. If Taken 3 gets made & one of the sons ends up to be Kim's boyfriend as suggested by others, it will make all the effort they went to track him down meaningless . I don't know if it was just me but the last scene I thought he was going to attack Brian , but they just had milkshakes & didn't seem too traumatised about the whole affair.
OK the good stuff...
Liam Neeson beating everyone up for 90mins ... It's worth it just for this.
All in all a sort of illogical film that was just made to grab more cash... I think the meeting went sort of like this..."How can we make a sequel to this standalone movie that's surprisingly made us a lot of cash?.....Hmm what if we make the main character get Taken this time...? OK that will do....that way we can still call it Taken.. Somebody get Liam on the phone."
In saying all of this I still enjoyed the movie , it is what it is . A reasonable action movie pretty much carried the whole way by Liam Neeson, who would give Bourne a run for his money. (Character not movie) 6/10 for me.., nowhere near the original but still enjoyable.