Movie Review - Taken 2

Taken 2 (2012)

Starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, and Famke Jannsen

Directed by Olivier Megaton

Taken 2 may not be the worst movie of 2012, but it may very well be the most offensive in its blatantness at being a pure cash grab for 20th Century Fox.  The fact that US audiences ate this up to the tune of nearly $140 million further disgusts me.  The first Taken wasn't exactly a cinematic masterpiece, but it was a fun ride and served as a launching pad for Liam Neeson to shift from an art-house favorite to cash-grabbing and less selective action star.  More power to the guy for making dough, but at a certain point, it's time to take on something a bit more challenging than continual turns as a generic bad ass -- leave that to Jason Statham who has shown he refuses to play any role that doesn't contain that characteristic.  

As far as a plot, Taken 2 borrows heavily from its predecessor except this time instead of teenage Kim (Maggie Grace) being taken by Albanian baddies for their sex trading schemes, her retired CIA agent father Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his ex-wife (Famke Jannsen) are abducted by the revenge-seeking family members of the Albanians Bryan killed in the first movie.  Ugh.  It's utterly ridiculous and incredibly lame.  Am I really supposed to believe that Kim is going to be able to awkwardly run through the streets of Turkey (a country she knows nothing about) and save her father?  Rather conveniently, Bryan stashed a miniature cell phone in his sock so he's able to talk his daughter through how to set off grenades and also give her a mini-cartography lesson.  In that not-so-clever way movies like this often foreshadow things to come, in the film's excruciatingly boring first half hour, Bryan teaches Kim how to drive, so when she commandeers a Turkish taxi, she's able to careen through the narrow alleys without a bit of trouble.  And it should come as no surprise that we're left with the ability to continue on Bryan's story in future movies to come!

I almost could have dealt with the hackneyed and rehashed plot if there was any amount of excitement at any point in time, but director Olivier Megaton fails to create a modicum of tension in the action sequences.  Obviously having graduated from The School of Quick Cuts based out of Michael Bay's backyard, Megaton (who I despise even more after discovering that he took that last name because his birthday is the 20th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima which is horridly tacky) is just lazy with some of the worst chase sequences I've seen in years.  Everything about this movie looks cheap and all the actors seem like they're just there for the cash and nothing else.  The first Taken was silly fun, but this comes nowhere near that level.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Taken (2009)

starring Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, and Famke Jannsen
directed by Pierre Morel
written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen

Admittedly, this was an incredibly fun movie to watch. It was certainly enjoyable to see Liam Neeson -- Oskar Schindler himself -- taking names and kicking some ass. Who knew that Liam had it in him?

However, Taken is not a perfect movie. The flick has a very simple premise (which in and of itself is not necessarily a negative in a film). Girl goes to Paris, gets kidnapped, and her father decides that he will do anything to get her back. The problem I had with the film is twofold:

1) Both Maggie Grace as the kidnapped daughter and Famke Janssen as her mother and Liam's ex-wife were both horrendously awful. What 17-year old literally runs and skips towards her father not once, not twice, but at least three times in the span of a week? "Daddy! It's you! Let me run to you with my arms outstretched!" Okay, I know this sounds like nothing important, but it completely took me out of the movie. It was something incredibly simple, but it was completely ridiculous. And Janssen...she was playing ice cold über-bitch and there was no need for it. I'm not sure if this is the fault of the actors or the director, but whenever either of them were in a scene with Neeson, they paled miserably in comparison.

2) The first half hour drags on endlessly. There's a pointless series of scenes involving Neeson being a bodyguard for a pop singer. I understand that it was in there to show that Neeson can kick butt, but I just found myself waiting for the daughter to be kidnapped.

Now, the flick is completely and utterly unbelievable. The amount of people that Neeson's character kills was astronomical, but who really cares in a movie like this. You'll notice that I never mentioned Liam Neeson's character's name...the reason is because despite that endless backstory in the first 30 minutes, this isn't a movie where you come out remembering little things like that. Instead you remember the scene where Neeson electrocutes a guy by shoving nails into his kneecaps and hooking them up to jumper cables. When stuff like that happens, who cares what his name was?

The RyMickey Rating: B