Taken 2 Review

I am going to steal a line from the short lived 90’s animated series The Critic to best sum up my feelings about the new Liam Neeson action thriller Taken 2… “It Stinks!!!”

I was a big fan of Taken, the movie surprised me with its intense story, well choreographed action sequences, and of course Liam Neeson’s bad ass character Bryan Mills.  I ended up recommending the movie to my family and friends and many of them really enjoyed the film as well.  Taken was a hit around the world, earning over 200 million dollars worldwide, and as is the case with most successful movies plans were quickly put into place for a sequel.  I understand that sequels can be a tricky thing, how do you recreate the things that made the original a success while also making things fresh and new.  Unfortunately Taken 2 is unable to recreate the tone and feel of the original and we are left with a shockingly dull and boring movie.

The film makers actually came up with a decent story idea for this sequel in having the families of Bryan Mills victims come after him seeking revenge.  Sadly that is about the only positive thing that I can think of to say about Taken 2.  Pretty much everything about this movie is terrible; it has gigantic plot holes, the acting is weak, the action sequences are boring, and you never feel like anyone is in any real danger, and the list could go on and on.

I left the movie theater very disappointed after seeing this movie, so I decided to hold off on writing this review to see if my opinion on Taken 2 would change at all with time.  Now a week later I have actually found that I dislike Taken 2 more now than I did when I first walked out of the theater.  Don’t waste your money seeing this in the theater; at most it is worth a Redbox rental.  Taken 2 gets 2 popcorn buckets out of a possible 5.