I had high expectations and felt really let down. If you loved the first one, don't expect much from this.

Rating: 4/10 (6 December 2012)

Full review at: http://miloponsford.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taken-2-review.html (Please see :))
It is written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and directed by Olivier Megaton, the writers and directors from the Transporter films with Jason Statham and The Fifth Element with Bruce Willis. With this in mind, I had pretty high expectations in terms of action and explosives and fighting scenes and was looking forward to a thrilling, tense plot. I wanted to be hooked by Neeson's cold vengeance and wanted to be shouting and egging on Neeson to break some bad guy's neck, but left the cinema feeling pretty disappointed.
The first thing I would like to critisise is the chemistry between the characters; I felt very little between Bryan (Liam Neeson) and his wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen), and child, Kim (Maggie Grace). It felt like a poor romantic film and although the characters were trying to look like a struggling family that rely on each other, I couldn't help but sit there in the cinema and think "BOOORRRRIIINNNG! Come on, Neeson, kill some people already!". I didn't feel any link between the characters and the audience and didn't feel sympathetic for any of the characters, except one...Murad (Rade Serbedzija), the main enemy! At the end he seemed like a helpless old man who just wanted peace and I felt kinda sorry for him when Neeson bluntly killed him. I wanted to watch Taken 2 to feel no sympathy for the bad guys but I felt the opposite!
I also didn't like Bryan's style and method of killing in this film; cold, blunt kills. In Taken, Neeson ruthlessly tortures and murders his victims with a variety of techniques (e.g. electrocution). In Taken 2, however, he simply kills the majority of them with a single bullet or two to the chest which was blunt and boring. He clearly wasn't sympathetic (I've said that word a lot already) for anyone and was too tired to play games and just wanted to get home with his family, so he simply pulled the trigger at anyone that stood in his way (yes; by anyone, I mean policemen, too!)
The fighting wasn't great either. In Taken we see a range of hand-to-hand intense combat scenes but in the sequel we only see one or two good ones. They were pretty average, too; nothing like the scenes from the Ip Man films or anything similar! The sounds were dull thuds and there was usually no music, so these fighting scenes were just terribly awkward. I just sat there looking around the screen instead of shouting "COME ON BRYAN! PUNCH HIS TEETH OUT!". Ah, yes, the music; was really badly used in some scenes. For example, when a bad guy gets out the car there is lots of high tension music, but all he does is go through a door way and then the film switches to another situation.
I also thought it was a bit crazy how his daughter hadn't even passed her driving test yet but was able to drive through tight streets at high speeds and do impressive drifts in a taxi that I could only dream of doing in my Capri! I guess I was paying attention to detail, but it still annoyed me. I think the fact that she hadn't passed her driving test was only added in to build sympathy and acted as another teenage connotation.
The plot matched Neeson's style of killing; simple and fast and wanted to be done already. I bet I could sum it up in one sentence; "Bryan and his wife are captured as revenge for Bryan's killing in Taken, and his daughter releases him so he can get revenge on his victim's avengers, then they can enjoy a soppy, unromantic holiday." Easy!
Did Neeson kick some ass as we were expecting? Well, yeah, I guess...nothing hugely entertaining but he did kill a lot of people. Did Olivier Megaton make a good film? No, not really. I wasn't sure if it was a cheesy romance-thriller or a dull action film. I had high expectations and felt really let down. If you loved the first one, don't expect much from this. Don't get me wrong; I really love Neeson and think he is a great actor, but he's certainly winning no Oscar from this film.
4/10