You Won't Be 'Taken' With This Sequel

by Brett Parker

The accomplishment of Taken 2 is to make us strongly realize that this slam-bang action series is the most over-the-top fantasy release for divorced, middle-aged fathers that Hollywood has ever produced.  Lord knows that Liam Neeson busting skulls is an appealing commodity, but maybe the story of a square American who beats the crap out of half of Europe to become a hero in the eyes of his ex-wife and daughter has more personal homegrown resonance that we realize.  What’s telling is how smart grown-ups treasure Taken way more than teenage action junkies ever could.

I happen to fall into the category of those who were wildly thrilled by the first Taken.  Essentially, the sight of a dignified Irish thespian becoming a brutal kick-ass machine more impressive than Jason Bourne was all kinds of awesome.  That’s why it kind of pains me to report that Taken 2, while certainly not boring, fails to deliver the same kind of thrills and tension that were in full force the first time around.  While the script actually produces a promising idea for a sequel, it never builds on its clever ideas but tries for more of the same from last time without bringing the same thrilling effect this time.

Taken 2 continues the story of Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), a retired U.S. government agent who we last saw rescuing his daughter from sex traffickers in Paris, killing countless villains and wreaking havoc in the process.  The film begins with the Albanian relatives of the traffickers Bryan killed holding a funeral for all their murdered loved ones in their homeland.  The family patriarch, Murad Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija), knows that Bryan is responsible for the death of his kin--including his son--and declares to all around him that they will have their revenge.

As Bryan vacations in Istanbul with his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen) and his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), Murad and his clan carry out their vengeful plan.  Bryan and Lenore are kidnapped and taken to a shabby holding house, whereas Kim is able to escape from her hotel room before trouble arrives.  Bryan is tied-up and told that he will have to watch Lenore die for all the lives that he took.  But Bryan is too skilled a survivor to just sit back and let that happen.  Using his highly-skilled government training, along with help from Kim on the outside, Bryan is able to untie himself and fight his way out of his holding area.  Once he’s free, Bryan wastes no time in getting his daughter to safety and trying to rescue Lenore, letting absolutely no one stand in stand in his way.

Things start interestingly enough with the Albanians-seeking-revenge angle, for it’s not only the most logical way to continue the story, but it also put a devilish twist on Mills’ idea about protecting your family at all costs.  Yet things go right out the window once we realize that the Albanians attack Mills with the same ineptitude as their fallen relatives.  If a guy single-handedly shot up half a country, killed half your family, and headed home untouched, wouldn’t you come up with a smarter plan of revenge than just tying him to a pipe and surrounding him with oafish thugs?  As Mills tears through his first batch of henchmen, the air goes out of the movie when we realize that this is all child’s play to him.  The first movie wonderfully conveyed a strong sense of nightmarish danger and impossible stakes that sustained suspense throughout, but this time we feel like Bryan will fight his way out of this situation just fine.

Director Oliver Megaton (Transporter 3, Colombiana) pretty much bungles all of the finer points that made the first movie rather distinctive (not to mention shamelessly steals songs from the Drive soundtrack to amp up this film’s coolness factor).  The sequel’s check-in with Bryan as a divorced family man feels more dopier than the last time around, probably because the screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (who also wrote the first Taken) doesn’t provide the weight and confessions we’d expect from a family who suffered a great crisis and is trying to move on.  Even the delicious exhilaration of watching Neeson pound on bad guys gets diminished here by shaky-cam work and frantic editing that’s among the most fast and furious I’ve seen recently.  Most of the action here feels a lot harder to make out than the last film, with jump cuts distorting a clear view of action.  This is especially frustrating in an alley scene where Mills is pounding on two thugs at the same time.  The camera shakes about so much that you wish it’d lean back and remain still so we can see all of Neeson’s impressive fight work.

One of the most interesting star image evolutions of recent memory has been Liam Neeson’s journey from distinguished, thinking-man’s actor to kick-ass action star.  The success of the first Taken made Hollywood realize that Neeson’s authentic combination of intelligence and toughness could create action gold, allowing him to churn out explosive thrill rides ever since.  If he keeps at it, then he could solidify a tough guy image every bit as memorable and reliable as John Wayne: a tall tower of masculine toughness peppered with no-nonsense gruff and straightforward smarts.

Whatever pleasure there is to be had in Taken 2 naturally flows from Neeson’s weathered gifts.  A Sherlock Holmes-like scene where Mills tries to figure out his surroundings in a van with a hood over his head nicely shows how his brains are just as exciting as his fists.  Yet when it does come time for some hand-to-hand smackdowns, Neeson delivers the goods.  My favorite scene is where Mills faces off with an Albanian who’s (almost) as good a brawler as he is.  It’s one of the few moments where the camera calms down and we can admire Neeson’s skilled yet brutal attack technique.  And while the screenplay tries to turn Mills’ strategic assessments into a kind of schtick, Neeson delivers a poignant speech towards the end about endless cycles of violence that brings the only moment of dramatic electricity within the violence.  

Taken 2 isn’t necessarily a bad product for the action junkie crowd, but it truly does elicit the usual criticisms one heaps upon weak sequels: “it’s not as good as the first one,” “it tries to be like the first one but fails,” and so on.  It’s far from being one of the biggest “sequel-letdowns” I’ve ever seen, but you’d have to be pretty damn delusional to think this flick is as good as the first one.  If anything, this film made me realize that if you or a loved one shoots up half a European country at some point, then perhaps its wise for you and your family to stay the hell out of Europe for the rest of your lives.