Taken 2

Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, D.B Sweeney and Luke Grimes.

Director: Olivier Megaton

Release Date: 2012

Running Time: 1hr 32 minutes

Genre: Action/Thriller

Rating: PG-13

Format: Blu-Ray

Synopsis:

Bryan Mills finds himself in Istanbul when him and his wife are taken hostage by the father of a kidnapper Mills killed while trying to rescue his daughter.

So here we are again, this time Bryan Mills and his wife have been kidnapped by the father of the man who kidnapped Kim. Murad Krasniqi seeks justice after Mills killed his son, speaking at his funeral, demanding that Mills be hunted down and killed immediately. It becomes apparent that Lenore and Sam have now separated and Bryan finds himself having to deal with the fact that his little girl now has a boyfriend to which she also kept a secret. There seems to be a growing pattern with secrets in these films don't you think? In the first film, Kim kept it a secret from her dad that she wasn't just travelling to Paris, she was going to follow U2 on their European tour. There's clearly still  a lot of tension between Bryan and Kim. Although we have a new director I like that he's been able to take off from where the last film ended.

The storyline has been very well written, it makes sense and follows on nicely from the first film, the audience is introduced to new characters immediately as to not cause confusion later on in the film, although the storyline is good it does take a little bit longer to get going. It's interesting to see a spark between Bryan and Lenore in this film, considering in the first film they had been separated for a long time and Bryan was barely allowed near Kim. Liam Neesons performance is equally as good this time as it was the first, the relationship that he now shares with his ex wife Lenore (Janssen) is just right, the chemistry between the two of them is perfect, there's a bit of a spark but there's also plenty of tension too, making for a very convincing relationship. This film is purely about the two of them, not Kim.

Cinematographer Romain Lacourbus has done well considering the material he was given, however it's nowhere near as good as the first film. There are so many choppy scenes, where the film has clearly been poorly edited. The camera moves so fast during some scenes, particularly fight scenes that you can't always make out what's supposed to happening, stealing away the fantastic storyline and the suspense. In the first film, there was a real feeling of suspense, that chilled you to you very bones, there is plenty of suspense in this film, however you don't get that wonderful thrilling feeling a action thriller like this should give. Visually it honestly doesn't look too bad, director Olivier Megaton and cinematographer Romain Lacourbus have managed to capture Istanbul beautifully, it's just a shame it's been poorly filmed, the cameraman does so much running the audience are basically given motion sickness. There's plenty of action, plenty of car chases, fight sequences are well choreographed but sadly due to fast camera work, it somewhat ruins it.

The most disappointing thing about this movie has got to be the fact that you don't see much of bad guy Murad, who is desperate to hunt Bryan Mills down, if your gonna have a storyline at least have the bad guy make a big appearance? Unfortunately the majority of the film, is Lenore and Bryan running away from Murad's team of bad guys, overall it's not a bad movie, but I do think it could have been filmed far much better and more thought gone into the storyline, especially making the bad guy a much bigger character then he actually is. The acting is good and at times is very convincing, but sadly Liam Neeson steals the show in this film. Great acting, really good action sequences, but a poorly filmed movie.

3/5 stars