Great acting and casting BUT it still managed to be the biggest disappointed so far. Taken is a kind of movie that don't need a sequel. Oh well, I guess they wanted to milk the cash cow. The biggest problem was with the story. Why would the enemies go after him and his family AGAIN? I mean didn't they already learn their lesson from the first film. The way the action sequences were edited was terrible. You couldn't tell who was punching whom and who was getting hit. Every half a second they would cut to another shot. It was painful to watch. Stay away from Taken 2.… Expand

Loved the first movie, struggled to enjoy this one. In the first one, you experience almost everything from Neesons point of view. You have no idea of where the girl is, and who took her. You don't even know if she is still alive. This is what made the first movie very enjoyable to watch. This made the quest of finding his daughter way more dramatic and thrilling as you never knew what to expect. After watching the first 10 minutes of this movie (and the trailer) i knew i was going to be disappointed. Taken 2 detaches us from the protagonist this time, giving us the point of view of the villains, the daughter and the ex-wife. This breaks all the drama of the first one. They are no surprises, you know exactly where the bad guys are holding them, and what they are doing to them. At this point, the only way this movie could save itself is by delivering a lot of action. The actions scene are alright but they are far from amazing. They are mostly chip tricks we have all seen before. A car chase that ends with a train nearly missing the good guys and hitting the bad guys is nothing original. The action doesn't make up for the lack of drama and suspense. Taken 2 clearly doesn't live up to it's predecessor.… Expand

Taken 2 my little freind, you rock. Tjis film is so well written and well paced ithat it will have you uessing who is going to get taken. The acting in this film surpasses the acting found in Looper and The Avengers or Te Dark Knight RIses. The story is so original I just didnt understand why they didnt just copy the first ones ideas, I mean there was a scene so well directed where a girl trows grenades, awesome.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What I don't understand, is how people thought the first movie was good. Rooster Teeth named Taken their 'Movie of the Year'. It was too predictable. If a guard turned right down a corridor, Liam Neeson would come from the left. The editing was unbearably atrocious. The writing seemed like the movie was filmed on the first draft. Taken 2 was no different. It is the kind of movie that is something to laugh at on the drive home. First off, the editing. During the fight scenes, it was like trying to play pin the tail on the donkey. You can't tell who is who until the scene is over. You may as well close your eyes and listen to the soundtrack. Which that in it self is nothing new. Like pretty much every single action movie today, the soundtrack is made up of the violin family. With the addition of a synthesizer. It makes the movie seem dull and cliche. Which it needs no help doing.

Lastly, the writing. I could of gone and seen The Expendables 2 and gotten a better plot line. In fact. There is barely any plot line at all. It's all 'Hey lets shoot everyone that sounds Turkish!'. The scene where Kim and Brian are in the taxi and burst into the US Embassy. What was the point in that! They weren't being followed. The last car got blown up by the train.

The only thing on the writing side I can give them credit for is when they are setting off grenades to tell how far away they are from each other. That was clever. Just the fact that there would be police swarming the streets.

This is a movie that will leave you red faced after the amount of face palms you do...… Expand

This film did ok for the actors but for a movie that had a succesful rating for the first film this was dissapointing. the diretors and writers of this film did well with the location and scrips but as soon as the film started to pick up all u can expect is a relax in your chairs and not at all close to a thriller. this film for me personally was not worth the money i spent.

This movie is appalling. From the opening credits you can tell it's going to be terrible, acting seems extremely forced and at times very cringe-worthy. Too many close-ups of the daughter's cleavage and bum thrown in for no reason. Product placement is beyond un-subtle and the story is just laughable. The ending is also terrible and the music general action nonsense lacking the emotional punch of the first. Basically, a great movie has been ruined by a simply terrible sequel simply to cash in on our love for the first.… Collapse

I really enjoyed the first Taken. It was mindless badassery. You didn't have to think, you just went along for the ride. Neeson showed himself as being capable of performing in a Bourne-esque role, which is great for a man of his age.

Underneath it all, Taken 2 is still a pretty decent action flick with Neeson on fine, badass form. There's some good action and the fights are exciting (when they're not cut to ribbons) and our hero belts out another memorable catchphrase (albeit one that's not quite as impressive as the orignal "I will find you" one).

So why the 0 score? 3 Reasons.

1) Olivier Megaton. This guy is atrocious as a director. Strangely, i've seen a number of his films & they've all been terrible. Don't ever let him near something high profile, ever again. Especially action films, he says he hates violence. What a joke.

2) The editing. Christ almighty, I lost count of the camera switches in just the first 5 minutes alone! Was it really necessary to show Neeson entering his daughters boyfriends house from 4 angles in the space of 2 seconds? I know a lot of fast cuts and shakey-cam are supposed to give you a feeling of the action unfolding, to make it feel more intense, but this was on such a ridiculous scale that at some points I felt sick.

3) The self-censorship. Pandering to the PG-13/12a crowd on a 'franchise' that has rated higher in the past is something I cannot support. I waited for the uncut DVD version of Die Hard 4 before I saw it as I did not want to give the studios my box office money for a kid-friendly version. The first Taken movie was brutal and unflinching, it was gritty and exciting. Taken 2, on the other hand, has had it's heart completely ripped out (off camera!) and loses a lot of the soul the first film had (I know that sounds quite pretentious given the type of movie this is). Whoever it was who went to the BBFC in the UK for advice on how to get a lower rating should be fired. 15 or 18, or don't bother.

I have been waiting for this film with excitement since I first heard it was being made, so it's heartbreaking to be so disappointed. I'm not sure if even an uncut/unrated version can save it, as Megaton has said in an interview that the DVD will be a directors cut, rather than a 'rougher, more violent cut'. This saddens me greatly. Extra scenes won't mean a thing if they're as mild as the rest of them.

Don't bother watching this, do not give the cinemas any money for this film, send a message that going for a broader audience will actually result in a smaller one. If you must watch this film, wait to see how they produce the DVD. If they do the same as Die Hard 4s release, then I will recommend you see it. If the DVD turns out to be as tame as the theatrical version, leave it. Pretend it never happened. Forget it exists. Cherish your fond memories of the first film and keep wishing for a sequel. A real sequel.… Expand

If you enjoyed Taken you will enjoy this, too. Good casting, good action, good film. As mush as Neeson's character wants to take charge, it is nice to see him learn to train and then defer to others.

some movies just can't have sequels. other then the amazing Liam Neeson acting and Istanbul, every thing else is just so ridiculously crap. story line and plot so predictable. especially if you have watched the first one Taken, which was a good average movie, then this would be extremely difficult to watch.

Let's talk more generally about the trend in Luc Besson's films, in particular those written with Robert Mark Kamen. They are going downhill fast -- and faster. It's one thing to have a sequel here or there, and another to mail it in as RMK is doing.

Released in 2008, Taken came out of nowhere to earn $145 million at the box office on just a $25 million budget. The movie-going public recognizes fresh material when they see it. Taken was original, creative, driven, and hosted one of the most memorable protagonists in recent memory. Of course they would have to make a sequel to wring some more money out of Taken's fans.

A review of a movie sequel which starts outs praising the first installment instead of the new story is most likely not going to be very kind to the unfortunate title which ends in the number 2. Taken 2 keeps Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills, Famke Janssen as his ex-wife Lenore, and the always relentlessly annoying Maggie Grace as his daughter Kim. Rule of thumb - if Maggie Grace is cast in your film, it will probably stink. This is her second feature film in 2012, after Lockout, so she is 0-2 this year. The bad guys are also mostly the same; they are the extended family of the first group of Albanians Bryan killed after they kidnapped his daughter and sold her into sex slavery. Now they want revenge; they must honor their dead sons and brothers. It doesn't matter that their sons and brothers were human traffickers, rapists, and murderers. Family honor is family honor ya know? Bryan is growing close with his family again. After a few days of work in Istanbul as a heavily armed bodyguard, Byran invites Lenore and Kim to Turkey to take in the sights and relax in a very posh hotel. Fortunately for the Albanians, this is where they are going to kidnap Bryan, transport him back to Albania, and torture him to death. The introduction of mom and daughter is a cherry on top for the head bad guy Murad (Rade Serbedzija). He is older with grey hair; I mention this because all of the other couple dozen bad guys run together, he is the only one you will remember. In Taken, Bryan had it comparatively easy. He had one person to save and could methodically move through the ranks of thugs as he stabbed and shot his way to the top. Now, not only does he have to watch his own back, he must save both mom and daughter, sometimes alternating which one he can help at any given moment.

The original Taken was so good because of Bryan's practical and purposeful methods of extracting information, Neeson's deadpan delivery, and the ins and out of seedy Paris locales. Now take everything which made Taken a great movie and divide it by two. You already know the story, you know Bryan will talk slowly and concisely about how he has certain skills, and this time you get to suffer a bit more because Maggie Grace gets more screen time. The camera work also takes a nosedive during hand to hand combat. The camera shakes, jumps up and down, does some jumping jacks, and the average edit is probably .002 seconds. The audience has no hope of logically following who is punching whom or where a new bad guy springs up from. Scenes where Bryan fights with a loaded pistol are much easier to watch.

It's not that I'm mad at writer Luc Besson or director Olivier Megaton; they probably were under a lot of pressure to re-create the Taken magic. Unfortunately, they did not do a very good job. The story is only a bit laundered from the first one and everything else is merely imitation. Stay away from Taken 2, it will only remind you of its superior predecessor.… Expand

Everything that made the first film so good in gone. The writing is terrible, The acting is awful (Liam Neeson being the only good one), and it was incredibly corny and stupid. Not worth watching at all imo.

Where as the first one succeeds in keeping you at the edge of your seat as you are watching a race against the time and have no idea where the movie will be going next, part 2 is predictable, over the top, run of the mill sequel that fails much more often then it succeeds. Favorite bit from the movie - daughter is struggling trying to get her licence. 2 weeks later she is racing like a maniac through narrow streets of Istanbul in a Mercedes with a manual.… Expand

I really enjoyed this movie. It is fairly quick pace and heavy on action with a light, but believable story thrown in. The action is superb overall. Furthermore, Liam Neeson is a great actor and he really makes the movie awesome. I would give it a 7.5 because while similar to the first it really isn't as good, mainly due to the story. The plot wasn't developed to a great depth and I found it a little lacking in the end. That being said it is still a great action flick to sit down and eat popcorn. Better than the Expendables 2; not quite as good as Total Recall (2012).… Expand

Walking into

As far as by the numbers revenge movies go,

Be prepared for complete nonsense. The girl is not skillful enough a drive to get a driver's license in the US, yet towards the end she hops in a stick stick shift cab and is the world's best getaway driver. Liam Neeson is detained and cuffed but left alone for hours to find himself away out while guiding his daughter towards him with using a cellphone he had because he was not stripped searched. Albanian's conversing exclusively in English. Grenades being thrown out of hotels and no police response whatsoever. The direction and editing is similarly terrible, the overuse of shaky-cam unbearable… Expand

It's a fairly routine story, but Neeson and Grace do a nice job as action-hero and action-hero's willing acolyte-daughter. Grace has actually come a long way since her Lost days - her likeability has increased in a significant way. And she just pops on the screen. I thought that the crux of the story was given short shrift. "I don't care that my son was a horrible kidnapper - your blood must flow through the hills of my home town because you killed him!" It lacked a certain righteous indignation. Tough to get behind his massive endeavor here. And the minor twist at the end, if you can call it that? So predictable. Should have been omitted. A good time, but nothing extremely special.… Expand

You can all hate me all you want for saying this, but in all honesty, I thought that the first movie was very overrated. Unfortunately, this film was no better. Not to say that either of them were bad, however I would like to say that this movie honestly came out of nowhere. I wasn't even expecting a sequel in the first place, but a month or two before this movie was released, we got the trailer, the poster and everything. The filmmakers just shoved this in our face without any heads up or notice and said "Here you go!" basically. And on that note, it's no surprise that the whole film felt very rushed, half baked, and very careless. Liam was great and all, but the fact that he's 60 years old and he's still doing this is pretty insane. The action and car chases felt like complete rehashes from the first as well. But worst of all was the very messy script. It suffers majorly from ridiculous little bits, like when Maggie Grace is reduced to running around scared for two-thirds of the film throwing grenades all over the place, as well as doing a mediocre job of driving from the baddies when she doesn't even have a license in the film. Summing up, at only a couple minutes over an hour and a half, it doesn't get any more rushed than this. Sadly, this is just not Liam's year for movies.… Expand

I'm a huge Liam Neeson fan, and a huge fan of the first Taken. Despite this I wasn't sure that a sequel to Taken would turn out good. First of all a sequel was unnecessary, and movies that get unnecessary sequels (The Hangover, The Mummy) usually suffer in the long run because the sequels never live up to the original movie. Well turns out I was right, Taken 2 never lives up to the first movie and just feels unnecessary. But that doesn't mean that the movie isn't enjoyable. It's a decent action flick and it will keep you watching to the end, but you'll notice that it lacks the punch and originality that the first movie had. In the end I enjoyed the movie even though it felt like a generic action flick with a spectacular cast. In closing I just want to say this to whoever is in charge of these kinds of things, do NOT make a Taken 3. You got lucky this time but don't push your luck with a 3rd movie.… Expand

Taken 2 is unbelievably disappointing. It starts out promisingly; the hero is just as likable as in first film and the new villain has a sensible, efficient motivation. Unfortunately, the film goes badly wrong when the action starts. The fights and car chases that follow are all generic and unexciting. Worse still, some of the logic in the movie is stupefying... A girl without a driver's license can suddenly drive like Jason Bourne, repeatedly setting off grenades in a metropolitan area does no damage and alerts minimal security and apparently, driving through a US embassy checkpoint at high speed, thus causing soldiers to open fire warrants no detention or subsequent investigation. What a total mess of a movie! The first one was classic. This one is utter jank.… Expand

an obvious money grab of a movie. The plot meanders to a point where the flick is simply not believable. The action scenes and pace of the movie are enjoyable.

I loved the first Taken movie, this movie was really just a repeat of the first but a little less enjoyable and much more predictable. Still given the range of crap that has been at the movies lately it was an enjoyable outing.

I thought was a good movie and not as great as the first of course but I wasn't expecting it. It had a good amount of action but of course I wanted a lot more. At an hour and a half it goes by way too quick so this is one movie I could sit through longer. It also had a large cheese factor I could've did without with the extra family moments at the end and my goodness can his daughter handle herself under insane amounts of pressure. She's damn great with maps and directions, driving in strange countries without passing a driving test and she can sure throw those grenades. I really wish there was a better finish with the bad guy as well. What the heck and how the heck did he kill him? That was too quick. I wasn't a huge fan of the camera shots moving around so quickly either with those fight scenes in this one but they were still good. I would see it again and as a fan of the first you gotta enjoy this one too. I admit it had some stressful moments.… Expand

Why is every goddamn critic hatin' on Taken 2? As long as I smash them with a bottle of whiskey, Taken 2 does not suck. It may look a little different on the first Taken, but Liam Neeson, he shouldn't need no stunt double. But he's 60-years-old, he's the Jackie Chan-meets-Bourne style of action movies. No signs on slowing down, that's all. I gotta get Taken 2 on Blu-Ray. Soon, it'll be Taken 3 or 4.… Expand

I was indeed wary that this might be not up to standards of the first film, but when I saw it, I thought it was better. It was a ridiculous storyline, but Liam Neeson was still up to par, as I enjoyed him doing what he does best. I could empathise with the characters properly, as I felt I was much more comfortable with Kim being a stronger character than in the last film, while the rest of the cast were still fully capable of committing to the plot. The ending certainly proved better worth than the previous film's ending.… Expand

I was a big fan of the first TAKEN, which I consider one of the best action flicks in recent years. However, I am as skeptical for this sequel. It's gotta be crap and cynical money making venture to say the least. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the end result. Let's get the negative side of things first: a derivative storyline, this time it's the parents who got kidnapped (WOW!). The positive side: Liam Neeson. Pure and simple, he imbues a certain charisma in his role and he has great chemistry with his co-stars. The action sequences are pretty good and on par with the original. At the end of the day, see TAKEN 2 as 21st century facelift of an 70's/80's Action sub genre: the revenge pics, popularised by the Death Wish series and the like. It's a B-movie, with no 'fat' (AHEM..Bourne Legacy..)… Expand

Why not make a sequel to one of the surprises of 2008? There's plenty more happening in the second outing for Bryan Mills, the retired CIA man who is obsessive, vigilant and on time precisely to the minute he said he would be.
But what the films premise does is bring an idea which so many other films leave out of the occasion, all the bad guys that are gunned down yet nobody seems to care about them? Incorrect in Taken 2. A mass funeral is being held for the unfortunate men who crossed Bryan in the first film, and revenge is on the agenda for the families of those he killed. But back in LA, Bryan is steadily moving closer to his ex- wife Lenore, played again by the beautiful Famke Janssen, while also continuing his overbearing but respected father routine to Kim Maggie Grace).
When he invites the two of them to Istanbul while he guards a Sheik, things take a turn when Bryan and Lenore are are out. Through careful instructions to his eventually safe daughter, he manages to work out where he and his ex-wife are being held, the process by which he does this may raise a few eyebrows..but it's quite a cleverly constructed scene that certainly gets all the characters more involved in this sequel.
No, it isn't as good as the first, but saying that it shouldn't entirely be viewed as a sequel, each character is given more involvement in this film to the point where it isn't entirely necessary to have seen the first, this perhaps may be a good thing because this isn't as engaging or surprising, we already know what lengths Bryan will go to, we know what he is capable of and quite frankly we don't see this sort of side to him in this film.
It's not so much a remake but maybe even a continuation without actually being a sequel. The same sort of edginess is gone and replaced with an array of doubling back efforts and countless chases, the emotional depth from the plot of the first film involving Kim being sold as a prostitute is gone, we no longer need to feel for these characters but just seem to be lead to enjoy the film without thinking about it.
Still a decent action flick with plenty to smile and talk about, but the film ultimately doesn't reach the surprising heights its predecessor did, much of the flare is gone, but again, worth a look anyway.… Expand