Taken 2 Movie Review

Monday, October 08, 2012



After the mind blowing and insanely action packed action thriller Taken  became a worldwide sensation, much of it thanks to breathless action scenes and the embodiment of a warrior like Liam Neeson , a sequel was all but inevitable. Neeson was back on board, Maggie Grace  and Famke Janssen  go with him this time.

Let’s flashback with Taken,(Let me tell you that if you haven’t seen Taken, then go watch it first before you watch Taken 2 so that you won’t get baffled with the next movie) Bryan, a retired CIA agent, went to Paris to save his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), abducted by white-slave traders. In the sequel, directed by Olivier Megaton from a script by Robert Mark Kamen and producer Luc Beson, Murad (Rade Serbedzija), father of the gang leader whom Bryan had hunted down and killed, swears a mission of vengeance on behalf of his son and all the grieving widows, mothers and orphans in the Albanian underworld. Learning that Bryan has invited Kim and her mother Lenore or Lennie (Famke Janssen) for a family-rehab vacation in Istanbul, Murad kidnaps Bryan and Lenore, while the frazzled but resourceful Kim escapes another covey of killers in the hotel and combs the city to find her parents.


It was established in the first movie that Bryan was divorced from Lenore and deeply possessive of Kim — so much that it appears like Neeson is stalking Kim every minute of the day. 3 years later, he gives a neck-swivel of suspicion when Lennie tells him that Kim has a boyfriend. (Kim must be in her early twenties by now; the actress who plays her is 29.) To Bryan, any guy who snuggles with his daughter is automatically in the pedophile category. He won’t even let the young woman drive the family car. “I’d rather do it myself,” he tells Kim. “I’m a little obsessive that way.” He does a double check over the guy and instantly new where he lives.


This father is a lot obsessive in every way; perhaps it’s because of a secret-service career. So the forward movement of Taken 2, aside from doubling the number of kidnap victims, is in Bryan’s trusting Kim enough to save his and Lennie’s lives — including insisting that she steer a stolen taxi through Turkish traffic while he fires away at the Albanians behind them. When she desperately demurs, he asks, “Do you know how to shoot?” “No.” “Then drive.”


By the end of Taken 2, Bryan has virtually erased the bad guy population of Istanbul, and stir up sufficient remorse and revenge back in Albania to assure the inevitable Taken 3. Yes, there will be Taken 3 and I hope it will be more action packed and breathless scenes.


For me, Liam Neeson looks younger as the movie goes on, as if he and Bryan were energized by mortal danger. He taken on every action-packed scenes with less effort than any action star I can imagine.  His recent action films were great and he should keep making them, to prove to his older admirers and other actors at the same age that, for a certain Irish action star, life begins at 60 and I totally believe he is a living legend. 

Watch the trailer here:


I totally recommend you to watch this film, two-thumbs up! :-)



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1 comments

  1. This is a pretty obvious example of a sequel that’s only going for the pockets of the audience, but at least there’s still some dumb, idiotic fun to it for the time it’s on-screen. However, I do think that Neeson is getting a bit too old for these roles even though he just started it all up. Nice review Grace.

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