Cast: I have nothing bad to say about Liam Nesson. I was stunned by his action star turn the first time around. He maintains that same caliber in this. I get the feeling they wanted to try making this Maggie Grace's action star debut but it largely fell flat, in part because I spent most of the movie trying to figure out how old she was supposed to be (surely they weren't still trying to pass her off as a high schooler). Given Famke Janssen's past work in the X-Men series, it would've made sense to not waste her playing the helpless victim the whole time.
Plot: Where to start? The first Taken was a sensational surprised. One of those movies that I can never explain why it worked as well as it did. The things it did right it did so wonderfully that it completely made up for all the issues. Still, the first act of the original is truly god-awful, in the very bottom tier of movie beginnings. Absolutely none of it worked until the "special set of skills" phone call. After that, it was a furious, no holds barred, man on a mission story at it's finest. Taken 2 lacked the iconic speech, lacked the lone wolf element, and humanized the villains. It relocated the first movie to Istanbul and took for granted how lucky it was to get the original to come together the way it did. Sadly, this first act of this one was equally bad as the first, complete with awkward dialogue, misguided jokes, and stone-faced acting. I guess the action was about the same quality, yet it was missing that manic energy that made the first stand out.
Elephant in the Room: Did this need a sequel? No. It's rare that a movie does. We only accept it if it is good, which is rare. Probably the biggest issue here is that the studio forgot something very important: Characters make franchises, not storylines. I'm not sure Taken could ever work as a franchise due to the need to create Nesson's "anything goes" desperation, but having another abduction in a foreign country, complete with a much less interesting phone call, and throwing in his annoying daughter as a sidekick is the wrong idea. The only way this could've worked is to keep the character and change the circumstances. I'm not sure what that would look like, but essentially going Evil Dead 2 on it was a mistake.
To Sum Things Up:
The is the movie the original was supposed to be. My main motivation for seeing this was to appreciate how lucky I was to not get a shit movie with the first. I'm not sure who the audience for this is considering it isn't a movie where people are invested in the characters and everything else in it took a big dip in quality. It would be foolish to not expect a third, but my goodwill has been spent.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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