What a let down

Rating: 2/10 (7 October 2012)

Now listen to me, very carefully, script writers. The plot for "Taken 2" is rubbish. If you don't sort it out, I will find you, and I will kill you.
No, it's okay, I won't actually kill anyone, but the above serves to highlight all that remains of the "Taken 2" legacy: parodies and spoofs. Where the first film focused on Liam Neeson's character as being resourceful (and then threw in some no nonsense action for good measure), the second film uses plot points that make me wonder if the script writer(s) engaged their brains at any point. The daughter fails two driving tests, and by the end of the film she is driving in a high speed chase, performing hand brake turns, and throwing grenades in random directions. Grenades that, you know, the Turkish authorities don't mind anyone bringing to their country on a plane. Grenades that evaded metal detectors. Then there's the 'we will kill you, but it will be slowly, and with us not in sight, giving you the best chance of escape, Mr. Bond'-esque sequence. And oh yeah, he's still got a mobile phone after being kidnapped, because evil Albanian baddies are actually good sports who don't mind giving their captives a fair crack of the whip. And while we're on the subject, you have a mobile phone, and you know the number of your ex-CIA associates who could help you in an instant. At what point in the film do you call them? When you're dangling from a pipe in a cellar, or when you're on US soil in an embassy? Go figure.
I really enjoyed the first film, but this was rotten. And in fairness, in hindsight, it would have been tough to measure up to the first one on the basis that there is very little more than could have been done with the idea, short of seeing Neeson kidnapped and his daughter deliver the "I will find you, and I will kill you" spiel. To be honest, that might have been better.