If you loved the first film - you will hate this... trust me

Rating: 5/10 (7 November 2012)

Being a huge fan of the first Taken film I wasn't at all put off by the negative reviews I read especially when they said things like 'too much like the original' - 'same film' etc. If anything this made me want to see it more! I mean the first film was awesome – I would happily sit through that again. Ass kicking, bad acting and 80's action catchphrases – I'm in for a treat.
So I went into the film without checking the rating – I mean to me it was obvious Taken 2 would be a 15 right? Wrong. The dreaded 12A flashed up on the screen – I immediately cringed. Surely this must be a mistake. It wasn't.
I sat through an hour and a half of soft core action. Taken (I like to call Liam Neeson 'Taken') would dispatch his enemies as you would expect – however to keep in lines with the oppressive rule of 12A you couldn't see exactly how they met their demise – there was a lot of funny camera angles, close ups and loud noises (not the cool bone breaking noises like in the first – but soft core grunting and loud crashing) - next thing the baddie would be lying dead on the ground. How did that happen? I thought to myself.
So it came to the scene of the final fight - between Taken and the bad guy who can actually fight back (like the not so menacing skinny bad guy with long curly hair and bad facial hair in the first – badly casted in both films I would say)- I really hoped that the film would redeem itself and have a good fight scene. But no – more close ups and shaky camera angles, Taken struggling a bit and next thing the bad guy was dead. I could have walked out I say. I didn't though
I can honestly not remember the last time I left a film feeling so angry at the director for making it into a 12A – maybe Terminator 4.
Everything that made Taken so awesome i.e. the bone crunching and brutal butt kicking action (that you could actually see) mixed with epic dialogue and an annoying girl who seems to be running in every scene was 'taken' away in this film. Actually she did still run quite a bit
Anyways I'm rabbiting on now so to sum up my review – a family fun, fast paced, soft core action film that may be enjoyable had you not enjoyed the wonders of the first one.
To all you Taken fans out there that haven't seen this yet please don't – it will upset you deeply.