- Plot: In Istanbul, retired CIA operative Bryan Mills and his wife are taken hostage by the father of a kidnapper Mills killed while rescuing his daughter.
- Director: Olivier Megaton
- Writers: Luc Besson (screenplay), Robert Mark Kamen (screenplay)
- Stars: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace | See full cast and crew
‘Taken 2’, the sequel to the movie ‘Taken’, was something I had kind of looked over at first, never having seen the first Taken. I knew the concept though, he goes to Paris and his daughter gets kidnapped, then he does some stereotypical action movie hero stuff to rescue his daughter.
Taken 2 was pretty much the same thing, except he’s going to Istanbul for business, and decides he might bring his family along too. The vacation starts off relatively normal, with them being amazed at how beautiful the city is, putting some clear emphasis on the Hagia Sophia while doing so. The city looks pretty cool at first, they have a nice hotel room with a nice view, but then of course. The enemies strike. I won’t spoil it beyond that (I tried not to say much). It’s not a terrible movie by any means, but its very very generic. It’s got some gunfights and whatnot, but it seemed like they spent 2/3rd of the movie introducing the scene and showing them having fun. The very end where he actually gets kidnapped and all the other stuff, happens really really quickly. It felt like an action movie where maybe only the second half was action. The first half gets very boring, they spent way too long trying to introduce the location and the characters.
Second off, I think pretty logically, and being as such I saw so many dumb things the enemies did. I won’t give examples spoiling the movie, but it was some pretty simple stuff, like not checking him and confiscating things that he could use to escape, such as a cellphone, or a radio tracking device. I could list other things, but I don’t want to give hints as to what happens in the movie. The enemies were overall pretty stupid. Don’t get me wrong, the actual action part isn’t too bad, its pretty entertaining. They just made some obvious flaws in the plot, and how they laid out the movie.
I give it a 75%, points because the action wasn’t bad, but it really isn’t that hard to make good action, just some gunfights and explosions and car scenes will do the trick. The plot was the exact same as the last movie, no real originality, it wasn’t very well thought out either. I think they were just trying to make a cash grab with this one, making a frail and weak plot to try and connect it to Taken, just so they could call it a sequel and sell it. You won’t be wasting your time if you’re a fan of action movies, just don’t expect anything amazing for the first hour.
Retrospect Realm 