Taken 2

I think most of us were surprised about Taken in 2008. What seemed to be an ordinary action thriller, turned out to be one hell of a ride, with great acting and great action. But what is most extraordinary is the box office numbers, cashing in over 200 million dollars in profit. Liam Neeson proved himself to be an action star, no one would have expected. With such a good start of Taken, will the sequel follow the high standards, or is this far way from the same quality of the first movie ?

After the events in Paris, Bryan Mills ( Liam Neeson ), is back in to normal life, spending time with his daughter Kim ( Maggie Grace ). In Albania, a ceremony takes place of dead terrorists, from their employer Murad ( Rade Sherbedgia ). He wants revenge on Bryan Mills, for killing his son Marko in France. Bryan travels to Istanbul, with his daughter and Kims mother Lenore ( Famke Janssen ). In Istanbul, everything seems to be going good, until Lenore and Bryan is captured by albanian terrorists. Before Bryan and Lenore was taken, he managed to explain to Kim, that something is wrong, and what she has to do. Now, time is running out for Lenore and Bryans life, and only Kim have a chance to end this.

Let´s face it, what worked back in 2008, does not work in this sequel. Taken 2 is an example of what happends, when you run out of ideas for a sequel. This is supposed to follow up what happened last time, but it´s not very effective. The story line is way too simple, the tension is gone, the only thing that manage to deliver something are the action scenes. Liam Neeson is not bad, but far away from his usual acting skills. Taken 2 is not awful, still there are so many flaws along the path, you can´t help to wonder why director Olivier Megaton got this script. In another directors hands, this might have worked with more details and perfection, but this is simply dull.

Rating: DD