Taken 2: Film Review

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A lot of movies are made with the best of intentions. In fact, most movies are. But then, there are the cynical filmmakers, studios, and stars among us who make movies purely for profit, knowing that what they’re producing is rubbish, but rubbish packaged in enough gloss and candy coated action sheen that it can turn a profit. Taken 2 is such a film.

Taken 2 knows it’s a bad movie. Occasionally, it is an atrocious movie that makes you pity star Liam Neeson who isn’t known for being in particularly bad films. But this one seems to revel in the fact that it is as standard a potboiler as could possibly have been conceived: Bryan Mills (Neeson) is a retired government agent who has daughter issues. Namely, his teenage daughter doesn’t like him. Now, if you’re a gun toting international bad ass with all the smouldering charm of Liam Neeson and your teen still can’t stand you, then it’s time for a visit to Dr. Phil. Oh, except that the teenage daughter in this case ends up getting kidnapped by some nefarious evil don who wants money and the whereabouts of . . . yawn, who cares!

The movie is so predictable and seemingly executed without even the slightest attempt to be at all innovative or interesting that you wonder if it wasn’t in fact funded by the Turkish government. Apart from some spectacular views of the Istanbul skyline, there is nothing in the film that will be retained by your memory – sans the instinct to wipe the whole sordid affair from your mind as quickly as possible. In this day and age of franchises like The Avengers and Batman which give heroes ample backstory to carry them through three, four, five, and even six films, the flimsy excuse for middle aged gangster shootouts that is Taken 2 simply doesn’t pass muster. A failure of epic proportions.