Taken 2

It was way back in 2008 when Taken swept the audiences feet. Though Liam Neeson was known to portray roles such as the iconic Oskar Schindler from Schindler's List or Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia, he was never established as an action hero - well, not until Taken was release, garnering a surprising followers. From a measly $25M budget, Taken was a hit with roughly $230M box office worldwide. Not bad, right? 4 years went by, we never thought that a sequel would be produced (Surprise from the greedy Hollywood film producers). But does it live up from its predecessor?

Bryan Mills (Neeson) is now a retired Intelligence Agent. Still fresh from the incident with her daughter Kim (Grace) being abducted, he stays to be the paranoid father. While Lenore (Janssen), Bryan's ex-wife, is having her marital problems, he decided to invite her and Kim for a vacation in Istanbul after his freelance engagement as a bodyguard. Unknown to him is that a group of Albanians are plotting revenge against him for killing the men involved in Kim's abduction. The chase goes on as the Albanians try to abduct not only Bryan but his family as well.

Basically, Taken 2 suffers much in building up the tension. The first part felt so awkward as the Albanian's swore to their son's graves with a line saying, "We will kill him." I shuddered in fear sarcastically. There must be a better way of writing things as complex as revenge. I know that they will kill him but they don't have to be that straight forward like they are treating their audiences dumb. There is so much to do with the writing to improve. But what lacks with the dialogue makes up with the ingenuity of Bryan Mill's character and the tactics used in the film.

Taken 2 included a couple of car chases which is not present in the previous film. While there are a lot of chases in Taken, Taken 2 takes it up a notch with car chases which somehow felt like I am watching a Bourne movie. One of my complaints with the film is with the camera. The scenes which involves a lot of fighting is just messy and not good with the eyes.

Liam Neeson shows that he can still do action movies even in his early 60s. He clearly made a statement that even with his age, he can still make a name as an action star. With Taken 2, he establishes this thought more concrete. Taken 2 had some tricks left in its sleeve but not enough to be at par with the first one.

GRADE: B-

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