Review: 'Taken 2' is underwhelming

Film: Taken 2
Director: Olivier Megaton
Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Rade Šerbedžija
Rating: **

Taken 2 sees Liam Neeson as an ex-CIA killing machine/concerned father Brian Mills doing what he does best. After single-handedly rescuing his daughter Kim (Grace) from a prostitution ring in Europe, the one-distant Mills gets closer to her and his estranged wife Lenore (Janssen) with all of them set to have a good time in Istanbul.

But don't be mistaken, hugs and kisses don’t take precedence over the action with the embittered patriarch of the previous film's goons, all of whom met with a sticky end, out for brutal vengeance.

Using the adrenaline rush-inducing action and the not-too-original screenplay of the first film as the yardstick, Taken 2 actually stops short of being an all-out snorefest. While having the vastly capable Neeson snarling and doling out physical harm by the cartload is undoubtedly the highlight of the duology, the novelty of this wears thin the second time around. For all the credibility his presence lends to the project, his efforts are undermined by the so-so direction and want of sequences that keep you holding your breath.

With the bullet-proof Mills having famously declared that he would “tear down the Eiffel Tower if he had to” in his search for his daughter, Taken 2 seeks offers the pedal-to-the-metal action against a backdrop of some foreign locale. Unfortunately, with the larger story just about adding up, thrills are hard to come by (There’s just so much fun to be had from watching thickly accented goons – mandatorily unshaven - being dropped like flies hovering over baklava).

As the cold antagonising ex-wife-turned damsel-in-distress, Janssen is serviceable as is Grace as the ever-vulnerable and scarred daughter whose former singing aspirations are mysteriously forgotten.

Watch Taken 2 if it makes your day to (once again) see a credible actor playing the brute, though this time engaging in an unimaginative combat with hoardes of the constantly misfiring ungroomed goons of Anatolia.