Title: Taken 2
Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Distributed by: EruopaCorp Distribution
Release Date: October 5, 2012 (Limited)
Rated: PG-13
Synopsis: In Istanbul, retired CIA operative Bryan Mills and his wife are taken hostage by the father of a kidnapper Mills killed while rescuing his daughter. (Via IMDB)
Shaunta’s Review: My husband is a major action movie fan. The more action, the better. He often judges a movie based on how much action it has in it, and if he expects ore action than is delivered, he’s disappointed.
He was no disappointed by Taken 2. This film has some pretty spectacular action scenes. I fact, the second half of this movie was basically a big car-and-foot chase fest with Liam Neeson beating up everyone thrown in for good measure. At one point, Liam and a bad guy clear off some kind of big dais of some sort had have what looks like a particularly violent high school wrestling match.
Don’t get me wrong. This movie didn’t suck. But, when I first heard they were making it, my thought was “Why?” And watching it didn’t change that. The first Taken film was really good. The idea of someone like Liam Neeson’s character being on the phone with his daughter, warning her about her moments-away abduction was heart-pounding. There was nothing that original in Taken 2.
If you go into Taken 2 not expecting much more than a couple hours of action, you won’t be disappointed. If you’re looking for the same kind of plot twists and ingenuity that made the first movie a hit, you will be.
For me, Taken 2 was fun. It was worth seeing on the big screen, because the city was gorgeous and car chases are always best big. Did I buy that someone like Lian Neeson’s character would talk his teenage daughter through setting off granades so that he could count the seconds and judge distance like you might during a thunderstorm? Not so much. The daughter and mother both come off in the film as spoiled rich girls, and Liam looks old. I didn’t believe him beating up sometimes three or four men half or even a third his age all at the same time, either. There was a lot of the bad guys shooting machine guns and not hitting anything, and Liam taking them out with a hand gun or a well-placed punch. At one point it looked to me like he killed a man with a Vulcun Mind Meld.
So, while Taken was a more innovative action movie with a compelling story, Taken 2 is straight up, formula action. Go into it with the idea that you’re mostly in it for the thrills, and you’ll be okay.
