Review: Taken 2

The first Taken was an amazing piece of action film, it was unforgettable, gripping and it had Liam Neeson kick someone’s ass. So is the sequel an improvement or not? Read on below.

Synopsis:
Liam Neeson returns as Bryan Mills, the retired CIA agent with a "particular set of skills" who stopped at nothing to save his daughter Kim from kidnappers. When the father of one of the villains Bryan killed swears revenge, and takes Bryan and his wife hostage in Istanbul, Bryan enlists Kim to help them escape. Bryan then employs his unique tactics to get his family to safety and systematically take out the kidnappers, one by one. -- (C) Official Site


Story:
The story in this sequel was directly taken (no pun intended) from the first one, it was a revenge story. The father of the Marko from Tropoja seeks revenge upon Bryan Mills for killing his son and getting even. From the looks of it, it seems to be good and directly in the timeline of the ‘Taken’ universe but it was not. It was less engaging and was just forgettable.

Acting:
Liam Neeson’s performance was a no-brainer, of course he was gonna be good. The thing that I liked in this film is that his “set of skills” was explored here and he was able to show on how awesome Bryan Mills is, as for the villain Rade Šerbedžija performance was good but not terrifying but I’m still a fan of him. For Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace, they were just forgettable.

Action/Violence:
It displayed a high-octane action like the first installment and it did help for the movie to get a little better. Some action scenes were memorable and some were not but all I can say is it is well-choreographed.

Cinematography:
Well for me this film showed how beautiful Istanbul is and some of the set-pieces were good, so this is one aspect of the film that I liked.

Direction:
Olivier Megaton directed Transporter 3 and Colombiana, I wasn;’t a fan of the third Transporter and I still haven’t seen Colombiana. Taken 2 was a mediocre effort from him, the shaky cams and close ups did not help the movie to be good; in fact it did the opposite (now I’m having thoughts if I should watch Colommbiana or not).

Overall:
Taken 2 tried so hard to be good as the first one but unfortunately failed. Despite a hiogh octane action and a good performance from the Liam Neeson and Rade Šerbedžija, it was just an average film. I give this a 2.5/5 for me.