Review: Taken 2

The father (Rade Sherbedgia) of one of the Albanians who kidnapped the daughter of retired CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) decides to seek revenge by kidnapping Mills and his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) while they and daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, who at 29 playing 17 may be the oldest teenager since Gabrielle Carteris on “Beverly Hills 90210”) are in Istanbul attempting to reconnect somewhat. Now it’s up to Kim, with a little help from her very knowledgeable father to rescue them. Jon Gries and Leland Orser are back as Mills’ CIA buddies, with D.B. Sweeney subbing for a strangely absent David Warshofsky, who was back in the next one.

 

The original (if you can use that term) “Taken” wasn’t my cup of tea, but it also wasn’t the horrible “Death Wish”-style vigilante movie I was dreading (No one gets raped in these movies, they get kidnapped or killed, and it actually does make a bit of a difference). It was better than it had any right to be. This 2012 follow-up from fabulously named director Olivier Megaton (“Transporter 3” and the subsequent “Taken 3”) and screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (who collaborated on the previous film, whilst Kamen also worked on “The Karate Kid” and “The Power of One”) is more of the same…but with far, far more diminishing returns. Three minutes in and you see that the chief villain is played by all-purpose Euro/Russian bad guy actor Rade Sherbedgia (here the Serbian actor plays an Albanian), a sure sign you’re watching a film of less than adequate quality if ever I’ve seen it. My heart sank as Sherbedgia vowed to avenge the deaths of the bad guys in the first film. And lo and behold, we have the same goddamn movie, basically.

 

Still, early on at least there were a couple of signs that the film mightn’t be all bad. In this one, Maggie Grace (who was in her late 20s here and looks it) makes her father promise not to do a background check on her new boyfriend. He’s knocking at the kid’s door ten seconds later. Funny stuff. It’s interesting that after the way things ended last time, Neeson really is trying to get his family back together at the start of this one. Meanwhile, the twist this time is that both Neeson and Famke Janssen are the ones taken. Shit role or not, it’s good to see that the very talented Janssen gets a little more screen time this go around. I also rather liked the scene where Neeson gets Maggie Grace to use a map to work out where he has been taken. Dude seems to know everything about everything.

 

Otherwise, this really is more of the same only worse. Megaton fared a little better with the next instalment but here proves to be an incompetent director of action. The shaky-cam nonsense robs the action scenes of any fun, impact, or clarity whatsoever. The pacing is quick once the film really gets started, but by then I didn’t care. In fact, I had such little giveashit that it didn’t even seem all that fast paced towards the end because I had clocked out already. As for Liam Neeson’s performance, this is far from his best, but he’s still better than this shit. I hope the money was worth it, Liam. I suppose Sherbedgia is fine enough, but as I said, his very casting says it all.

 

The filmmaking style is annoying, the villains nondescript, the plot unoriginal, and Liam Neeson’s reason for making the film must truly be brought into question. Probably what you’d expect from a sequel with a different director but the same screenwriters and star. Pretty dull and flimsy.

 

Rating: D