Taken 2

 

Liam Neeson is back in Taken 2 and to borrow one of sayings of The Rock, he is out to "Layeth the Smacketh Downeth." I really enjoyed the whole concept and story with the original Taken, so I was excited to see what they might do with the sequel. With the same people playing the role of the family it made to help with the continuity of the film since we cared about the characters. So from the first trailer I looked forward to seeing Taken 2 takes place about a year or so after the original and our whole story revolves around the family of those that Neeson's character eliminated in the first movie, as the patriarch vows for vengeance on not only him, but his family. Of course after his ex wife and daughter surprise him in Turkey after one of his security jobs, it sets everything in motion for the Albanian families to seek out their revenge.

 

Liam Neeson is back to reprise his role as Brian Mills and is the same character we saw in the first Taken movie. Neeson has had a career different from a lot of others as it has been in the later years of his career that he has become the action star and while with some this may not work, Neeson is truly believable in his ability to kick bad guy butts. I believe it is due to the wisdom he seems to carry in his action roles. Maggie Grace in the role of Kim, the daughter to Brian Mills, while still the sweet daughter she adds a layer to her character as she has to in a sense be the stronger one and help her father escape from his captors. She plays the emotion fairly well and really connect well with her onscreen parents. Our main villain who is the patriarch of the Albanian families is Rade Serbedzija, who seems to always be cast as our Easter European villain gives a decent performance. He has such an easiness about him that throughout the film he almost has this grandpa like feel only to remind us that he would get revenge on anyone that crosses him. For the most part he works well in the villain role, going against Neeson yet somehow I felt like in the final confrontation he was no match. Unfortunately, Famke Janssen as the ex-wife her role was fairly minimal and it seemed like most of the time onscreen she was left to playing her role as being unconscious or just coming to after being unconscious. The rest of the supporting roles of the henchmen were exactly as I would expect in an action movie.

 

The story for Taken 2 ended up being very similar to that of Taken with just a change of European location and changing who was taken. With as surprising of a hit the original was it only made sense that the studio would want a sequel that could make money. Yet, I think there was a lot more they could have done with the plot that would have had a more creative feel and story. Plus, I felt that they had the subplot of the rekindling romance between our Mills and his ex wife that they started only to let it fizzle and go nowhere. Of course the subplot of Kim having a boyfriend served no purpose as I was waiting for the boyfriend to be more of a part then just the filler he was in the end. But with an action movie the story while it has to be there it is not why someone goes to an action movie.

 

The action is the reason one would go see Taken 2 and after a little of story set up it moves right into the action and does not stop. The most important thing to remember though is you just have to let them take their liberties on logic in order for action sequences. Such as Neeson getting to a bad guy hideout simply from a dog barking, or him counting and stating when turns happen to help himself figure out the distance he may be from his hotel, so he can use his daughter throwing to figure out where he is located. even with this Neeson has an uncanny ability to be able to command the screen that the action is believable no matter how sticky of a situation he gets into. The fight sequences from time ti time though as they used shaky cameras made it hard to follow from time to time.

 

Taken 2 ends up being a decent action movie sequel that I went into with high hopes. While Neeson showed precisely why he has become a strong action movie star the story was too similar to the first go around that it really missed out on an opportunity to give another great story. It was as if the writers had to write the story to fit the action rather then it all working together as a cohesive unit. I am giving Taken 2 two and three quarter buckets of popcorn out of five. This is a movie that you can rent, but even at that I would look for it on cable TV sometime.

 

-The Movie Man