Taken
2
Still
no sign of Child Services…
One
of the surprise hits of 2008, Taken was mildly xenophobic fun, a no-nonsense
action thriller which turned Oskar Schindler into the kinda guy who’d punch a wolf in
the face, redefining Liam Neeson as a super-annuated action hero.
The
plot was simple: Over-protective father and ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Neeson)
is trying to rebuild his relationship with his estranged daughter Kim (Maggie
Grace) and
remarried ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) after years of working abroad. When Kim goes to Paris on holiday and
is promptly kidnapped by slimy Albanian white slavers, Mills must fall back on
his old skills to rescue her, in the process battering seven shades of shite
out of Paris’ dodgy Eastern Europeans, rapey Arab sheikhs, corrupt French cops
and anyone else who gives him a funny look.
Drawing
on the Die Hard 2 school of filmmaking, Taken 2 is pretty much the same shit happening
to the same guy twice. This time
around, Bryan’s working a little security job in Istanbul when Kim and Lenore
turn up and join him for an impromptu couple of days holiday. Lenore’s marriage is on the rocks and
Kim’s playing matchmaker, trying to rekindle Mom and Dad’s romance in one of
the most vibrant cities on Earth.
It’s unfortunate then that the grief-stricken, vengeance-seeking
patriarch (Rade Serbedzija) of the Albanian white slavery gang Bryan massacred in the
first movie decides to play gooseberry.
Lenore is taken and it’s up to Bryan and Kim to save her. Which involves Bryan murdering every
Albanian in Istanbul in as child-friendly, PG-13 fashion as possible while Kim
practises for her driving test which she’s failed twice.
Seriously.
A
major sub-plot of Taken 2 is concerned with Kim’s driving deficiencies.
Opening
next week to what’s increasingly looking like almost universally bad reviews, Taken
2 isn’t very
good. It’s not as terrible as
you’d think from the reviews but when the director’s surname is Megaton you’d be a fool to expect
anything other than a bomb.
Where
the first film was lean and mean, pared to the bone and moved like a bullet, Taken
2 feels
rather slow, flabby. Much of the
film’s criticism is being directed at the admittedly cynical editing of some of
the film’s more violent fight scenes to gain a less restrictive, more teen
friendly rating. And sure, the
film does look like it was edited by a mountain gorilla on tramadol who’s
snipped out all the snappy-neck noises and stabby/shooty wound moments with
some safety scissors. But, be
honest, director Olivier Megaton’s previous films, The Transporter 3 and Colombiana, were almost
incomprehensible, edited to cause the maximum amount of fitting amongst
epileptic audience members. And
really, was anyone actually expecting to be blown away by Taken 2?
The
film is just a daft, by-the-numbers retread of the first movie. The action scenes are decent as Neeson
and Grace run around Istanbul trying to find Janssen and steer clear of the
Albanians and with so much emphasis placed on Grace’s bad driving of course
she’s going to take the wheel for Taken 2’s big car chase. But there’s no surprises here (other
than the filmmakers think the audience will believe 29-year-old Maggie Grace
can still play 17), Taken 2 never takes you anywhere you don’t expect it to.
But
it doesn’t have to!
Taken
2 is built
upon the concept that we like to see Liam Neeson stride around an exotic locale
in a leather jacket battering foreigners/wolves/Sith Lords. We do. And we’ll probably watch Taken 3 when that comes along. Surely that Arab sheikh Neeson killed
at the end of the first movie must have had some sons who are looking for some
payback?
David Watson
Directed
by:
Written
by:
Produced
by:
Starring:
Genre:
Action,
Thriller
Language:
English
Runtime:
1 hour 31
minutes
Certificate:
12a
Rating:
UK
Release Date:
Thursday
4th October
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