Bizzarily flawed but still a good film

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2014)

I quite liked Taken 2 because of its pacing, estranged father- daughter conflict and a few other things that I will talk about later on in my critic review even though that movie did in fact lack its full potential! The problem with the movie is that there isn't any Liam Neeson awesomeness, there is no slick action, the pacing though good lacks some urgency, the film lacks fast-moving editing, the main villain doesn't get enough screen time and finally something I didn't mention in my first Taken critic review is that I'm not entirely satisfied with the casting of I DON'T REMEMBER HER NAME as Kim because she was KINDA weird looking a BIT and the filmmakers should have chosen an actress with a COMPLETELY beautiful face to play Kim! I've wondered to myself how can a director make such mistakes, mistakes in a movie which are so easy to avoid but then I've learned from my brother that sometimes it is just because some directors think or believe that people after having seen a first exciting movie don't want to see the same stuff as in the first movie in the second movie again and that does make sense. Yes, it does make sense but it depends in which direction you're taking this statement (bring in change to a sequel) toward! What I mean by this is that does it still mean that when you're trying to bring change in a sequel you have to show inferior action in comparison to the first movie!? Hein!? Why not just simply think of taking the action to a higher standard level in the first place hein!? It's obvious and I'm surprised that the director hasn't thought of that already! Or perhaps who knows the director thought of that but he felt and/or thought that it was too challenging for him to do! Nonetheless, the film does a few good things which improve upon the original and one of them is the character of Kim. I really like the fact that she has fallen in love for the first time in her life and that she has also become immature (but still kind) and that she doesn't answer to calls and is being secretive to her father, and also the idea of her father chasing her around to get her to pass her driving test and that fits smoothly well for a sequel continuing to explore an estranged father-daughter relationship. Something I've noticed however is that Liam Neeson's character is never shown to be annoyed at Kim. It would have been better if he was shown to get annoyed at her in order to make the father-daughter conflict stronger. I hope Taken 3 will learn from the first sequel's mistakes IF the filmmakers read the negative reviews on Taken 2 by the critics and audience and that it manages to improve upon both Taken and Taken 2! I'm looking forward to seeing Taken 3 or should I rather say Tak3n? Tak3n definitely sounds better! My rating for Taken 2 is 7.0/10