Taken 2

Should I have expected anything else? 

Where the original Taken was a tour-de-force for Liam Neeson and a fresh action thriller (and a little overrated in my opinion), Taken 2 is about as average as action movies get. And that's a big no-no in the Rath's Review's rule book. 

If you have never seen the original Taken, the story is that Liam Neeson's daughter, Kim, gets taken while on a trip to Europe so he flies over there, creates a bunch of hell, kills a bunch of dudes, and it's pretty good. Taken 2 takes a similar route as the Hangover Part II where it basically repeats the premise with a few slight changes. A family vacation in Istanbul goes awry when Liam Neeson and his ex-wife get taken and his daughter *gasp* doesn't. With that being said, I actually found the motives of the bad guys unique in this iteration. Essentially, the bad guys in this movie are the family members of the ones who Liam Neeson destroyed in the first movie. It's not often that a movie like this shows us what happens to the families of the scumbag #1, scumbag #2, and so on and so forth. So on top of creating an excuse for another movie to happen, I found the motive to be interesting and actually somewhat convincing. Continuing on that trend, I bet Taken 3 will continue the story with all the taxi drivers whose taxis got stolen/wrecked by Liam Neeson in this movie. I can imagine the title now: Taken 3: Pay Your Dues...

Easily the best (and smartest) scene of the movie is when
Kim, played by Maggie Grace, is trying to find her father. 

"You drop your gun!" 
"No you drop yours!" 
"Mother f***er! I kill wolves with my bare hands! Dont mess with me!" 
"Yes sir..."

So what exactly makes Taken 2 such a disappointment? Well, I think its ultimately just the fact that when I go to see a movie with Liam Neeson, I expect it to be bad ass, smart, and stir some sense of emotion. Taken 2 is generically bad ass meaning that he never reloads, kills a bunch of dudes in fashions that I have seen umpteen million times, and it plays out the exact way that you think it will. Taken 2 is never really all that smart. It has a scene where Kim is trying to find her father that is actually brilliant, but it's the high point of the movie. Then you have scenes like the one where Bryan (Neeson) and his daughter crash a taxi into a U.S. Embassy and there was literally NO REASON to do so. And emotionally? Taken 2 only stirred my emotions once when the villain was torturing the wife and telling Bryan what he was going to do with his daughter. So about 1 minute and 42 seconds of emotion...

"I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want...
but if you don't read Rath's Reviews,
I will find you.
And I will kill you."

This is clearly going to be a rather short review because honestly, I just don't have to say that much about Taken 2 for my uber-smart readers to get the point. If you really liked the first one, this one isn't even close in the entertainment department. If you still feel like you have to see this one, rent it when it comes out. It is just too generic of an action movie for me to give it my stamp of approval and despite the fact that it has one of my currently-favorite-actors, Liam Neeson, in it...it just doesnt justify this bland trip through Istanbul. 

If you want my honest opinion, book a flight to Alaska instead and re-watch The Grey. That's not only Liam Neeson's best movie of the year so far, it's one of the best movies of the year so far, period. 

Pros:

• I actually like the motives of the bad guys avenging their family members. It gives a little bit of life to the hoards that Liam plowed through in the first one
• There is about a 15 minute time period where the movie is really good. Right when Bryan and his ex-wife get captured there is a slight torture scene and then he helps Kim to find them. It's very well done

Cons:

• The remainder of the action is bland with a capital "B". This really grinds my gears because I LOVE inventive and unique action but HATE boring action. 
• Shaky-cam makes an appearance here and it is not a welcome one. On top of that, some of the editing is atrocious. Seriously it's horrendously bad. Changing camera angles upwards of 60 times in a fight scene? Not necessary guys. Let it play out
• There is something wrong with the sound. Gun shots sound dulled, punches sound soft, and car chases are kind of quiet. It seems like the movie couldn't decide whether or not to have the music loud or the action loud so they turned both of them down
• After Taken was surprisingly pretty good and The Grey was phenomenal, I expected more from this one. It did not deliver

Rath's Review Score: 4.5/10