Taken 2

In 2008, Taken came out of absolutely nowhere to become a cult favourite, and make an action star out of Oskar Schindler. On a budget of $25 million, and making over $225 million in the box office, a sequel was inevitable. And so here it is, with a severely inflated budget ($80 million), but also a severely watered down certificate (12a's compared to the uncut original's 18s), as well as an interesting twist on the original's premise; this time it is Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his no-longer-estranged ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) who get taken, and it is up to their daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) to save the day. The villains are also not just bland, faceless bad-guys; they are the fathers, brothers and sons of all the men Bryan killed while trying to retrieve his daughter the first time around. But all of this potential is wasted in a massively dull action film that has clearly had its teeth pulled out.

A big part of the appeal of the first Taken was its ruthlessness; the way Mills tore around Europe absolutely destroying anyone and anything that stood in his way. The vicious nature of the movie gave us a giddy thrill, and most of those rough edges have been taken away for the sequel. The fight sequences are shot and edited with that close up shaky cam look that makes it impossible to fully understand what's going on, and the same goes for a prolonged car-chase that never really feels like it gets out of first gear. Most of the violence seems to have been edited out too, which will probably end up being on the uncut DVD release, but here it just causes confusion, as we see bad guys die from a single punch, instead of getting to see the big steel rod they were obviously impaled on.

There is some fun to be had in a scene where Bryan tries to find his daughter's location with the use of a map, a shoelace and a bunch of grenades, and it's always fun to watch the now 61 year old Neeson kick ass, but all in all, it's obvious that all of the stuff we loved about Taken got taken away for the sake of making more money this time around. Very disappointing.