The director’s name is Oliver Megaton? Is that a real person? On the evidence of watching the film, Megaton, who sounds like a Transformer, could quite easily be a robot. The film itself looks like it was written by a computer and acted by zombies, which is quite a feat.
Anyone who has seen the first Taken will know exactly what to expect from this. This time around though it is Neeson’s Bryan and wife Lenore who are taken and their daughter Kim has to turn into an all-action hero to free them, at which point it becomes the same film as the first one.
Bryan is now retired and living in LA, but when he gets offered one final security job in Istanbul he takes it. Lenore and Kim fly over to surprise him but are kidnapped by a gang headed by the father whose sons Bryan hacked down in the first film. Using a hidden mobile phone Bryan guides Kim into saving him, but Lenore is still missing and together they must track her down.
Everyone knows the routine here, you know who the bad guys are as they all have dark skin, bald heads and massive leather jackets. Istanbul is a suitably shabby city which American have no trouble navigating around, and there’s lots of grenades, guns and weapons being fired off in all directions.
There also seems to be a huge amount of product placement going on from a certain computer giant phones, tablets and laptops appears in every other scene, all very obvious.
As a B-movie with a cast to match it certainly delivers what fans would want, it’s just a shame there isn’t a bit more wit or genuine pacing to it. The visuals are relentlessly grubby and hand-held, and the acting is terrible Neeson seems to be getting worse as he gets older, not better. Was there really a need to have his daughter running around in a red bikini for much of the film? Apparently there was.
Slotted in between the latest Bourne film and the forthcoming Bond movie, Taken 2 fills a slot to keep the action fans happy, but it really belongs in the bargain bucket at your local DVD shop. It’s forgettable stuff apart from that director’s name.
Overall verdict: Predictable B-movie with a couple of well-staged chases and stunts, but nothing you haven’t seen done better before.
Reviewer: Mike Martin