Taken 2

Ah. The sequel trap bites me again. Much as I enjoyed Taken I avoided the sequel because I didn't think it would be any good. Then out comes Taken 3 and I think "Oh, maybe 2 was OK... if they made a 3rd."

What's Eddie's Law Of Sequels? Some people never learn.

Yes, they got me. Taken 2 is rubbish. Maybe that's a bit strong; quite disappointing would be a fairer assessment. It's clearly something knocked out for the money, with little thought. You can bet I wont be wasting any time on part 3.

SPOILERS

For a short action film (90 mins) we get a very long (20 minute?) build up at the start to tell us that the Albanian people traffickers are annoyed at Bryan for killing their men, his daughter isn't over her ordeal from the last film (but does have a boyfriend) and his ex-wife Lennie is breaking up with her new partner.

Yawn. It's just all a bit dull. A decent writer would have woven this into the story instead of just flopping it onto the screen as a lame intro.

But the prospect of the action to follow isn't that great either. The Albanians are coming to get Bryan and make him suffer. They have plenty of chances to kill him, but manage to f*ck it up every time because inexplicably they also want to kill his ex-wife and finish the job of selling his daughter into slavery.

So the Albanians have come all the way to Istanbul in 3 cars and have captured Bryan and Lennie. What do they do? Oh yes, put them in a room together and go to sit somewhere else leaving them with one guard outside who can't stay awake for more than 14 seconds.

The villains are just so staggeringly incompetent that you think you must be watching an Arnie film from the 1980s... but without any jokes. Sigh.

And don't get me started on the stupidity of a learner driver managing to crash a taxi through the anti-truck-bomb defences of a US embassy whilst under heavy machine gun fire!!!

It's stupid, humourless and formulaic. Compared to the first movie it is terrible. By itself it is simply mediocre. Shame. I can't believe it took over $300,000,000 at the box office... but that explains why it was made.