Unintentionally hilarious

Rating: 3/10 (7 September 2013)

In 2008 Taken was a surprise hit and made Liam Neeson a surprising action hero with him ending up getting him many action gigs. Taken was a cheap to make, so a sequel made business sense, leading to Taken 2, a definition of a money grabbing sequel.
A year after the events of Taken, an Albanian gangster/clan leader (Rade erbedija) wants revenge for the death of his son in Paris and sends out his operatives to find the man who did it. Bryan Mills (Neeson) has taken a bodyguard job in Istanbul, when his ex-wife, Lenny (Famke Janssen) and daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) surprise him in the Turkish city. But this when the Albanians plan to strike, kidnapping Bryan and Lenny, forcing Bryan to guide Kim to save them.
Taken 2 is hilarious and that is certainly not what the sequel was aiming for. It was also like the film was written to be a parody but directed to be deadly serious as this is a film that incredibly stupid. Some glorious moments include Bryan finding Kim with a GPS he put in her phone, Kim having to throw grenades off rooftops in a major city, Kim certainly becoming a skilled stunt driver and Kim and Bryan clashing through the American Embassy's entrance. We get the bad guy doing something so dumb that it may as well be a parody because they capture the highly trained Bryan and leave him alone in a locked room alone so they can watch a football match. Kill him, you have won, or if you want to torture him, break his arms and legs so he can't escape.
Olivier Megaton takes over the directing duties from Pierre Morel. His career has been lacklustre despite his awesome name. Taken 2 was rated PG-13 in North America when the first was R-rated. It was a neutered experience with the violence cut and Megaton was not an interesting action director. Most the action is bland, with him relying on shaky cam and quick editing. Megaton certainly cannot shoot an fight scene if it involves more than two characters as you will get lost with what is happening and where people are. The car chase and rooftop chases are decent enough though and the final fight was eligible simply because it was two people fighting.
This was clearly a paycheck film for most of the actors involved, with Neeson looking disinterested and Janssen was giving the thankless role of being kidnapped and tortured. erbedija also had a thankless role as the generic Eastern European villain and was wasted considering actually had a smart way to continue the story. But it was Grace who was the worst performer in the film; she is too old for to play a teenager and her delivery is awful, particularly when she is meant to be scared.
In Taken both Albanians and the French were portrayed in a bad light. Istanbul at least does not look like a city of prevents and corruption, but this is hardly highlighting the city as it shown as a rundown, decaying city compared to the clean, orderly, modern world of Los Angeles. This is not aided that Istanbul was shot with a grey/green filter that makes the city look even worst.
Taken 2 is a copy and paste sequel of the first film but given a twist that is more like a parody. It is a sequel that did not need to be made and if a third film is made (which is scarily likely) I would love to know what city and country is going to get insulted next. I would be highly surprised that Kim would even want to leave her bedroom after her experiences when she left American soil.