nearly worthless

Rating: 2/10 (24 December 2012)

This film is a disappointment in so many ways, ranging from stupid and predictable dialogue to incomprehensible fast-cut action where you can't tell what's going on. But here's one huge problem. It's set in Istanbul, an attractive and modern city, where there's a strong police presence that keeps the city's many visitors safe. Many people have visited Istanbul, either as a destination or as a layover on low-cost Turkish Airlines. A major part of the film's audience knows that the city is NOT like it's portrayed here. Women do not wear burqas in Istanbul. The police do not drive tiny flimsy 1970s-era sedans. Boulevards are wide and well-marked. You can't fire guns and toss grenades around without a LOT of police attention, very fast.
Why bother setting the film in Istanbul, then acting like it's some uncivilized lawless Third World slum? A large part of the film's audience knows Istanbul is nothing like this.
More significant problems:
* The US Embassy is in the nation's capital, Ankara. There is a US Consulate in Istanbul.
* US embassies and consulates do not have American soldiers guarding the buildings from behind sandbags, ready to gun down anyone who approaches. That would be awfully inconvenient for American tourists who need additional passport pages and for local citizens applying for visas.
* If you could simply crash through a flimsy guard booth and have your vehicle in the middle of the US compound, that wouldn't be much protection against car bombs, would it?
* Albania and Turkey do not have a common border. Neither country has frontier checkpoints with primitive hand-raised gates on a single dirt track.
* Travelers cannot simply check their guns and grenades into their luggage, then pick them up in Turkey. Travelers cannot detonate grenades in crowded areas in Turkey, then simply board the flight home. Travelers cannot fire guns, destroy police cars, and commit multiple homicides, then easily pass through passport control.
It's an utterly moronic movie. I love suspension-of-disbelief action flicks as much as anyone else (I love the Bourne and Mission Impossible franchises), but "Taken 2" is a complete waste of time.