TAKEN 2 (20th Century Fox)
Director: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, RadeSerbedzija
Let’s get something out of the way now: Taken 2 is essentially a remake of Taken. The question, then, is why bother with the sequel if you’ve already seen the original.
I don’t have an answer for you.
The film doesn’t start well: where the original had an elegantly simple premise (Neeson’s daughter goes to Paris on holiday and is kidnapped, and her former CIA agent dad goes over there to find her), Taken 2 is a little muddier – daughter Kim (Grace) and mother Lenore (Janssen), who is separated from Bryan (Neeson) but having relationship problems with her current husband, surprise Bryan on a quick holiday stop in Istanbul.
Why is the ex-wife coming along on such a trip And why, given the events of the first film, is the family so relaxed about travelling to foreign countries
Wouldn’t daughter Kim be terrified of going anywhere Taken 2 spends little time examining the answers to these questions.
But despite the fact that it seems patently silly from the moment the studio logos appear at the start, it would be unfair to say Taken 2 is a bad film.
It’s not. It just isn’t new on any level and, because of that, it loses some of the appeal inherent in its formula, casting (a serious actor in an action movie works) and setting.
Still, Neeson is great, and the action is fast-paced and edgy, even shocking at times. The film looks pretty stunning in high-definition – Taken 2 was purposely filmed on a gritty film stock, and the blu-ray transfer is pretty faithful to what I imagine the filmmakers were going for.
The sound is a little flat, but it doesn’t detract from the action on screen.
Just don’t go into Taken 2 expecting anything new. Or challenging. Perhaps that is the answer to the question ‘why bother’: you should watch Taken 2 if you watched the original and thought ‘more please’.
Video Quality: 1080p resolution, MPEG-4 AVC codec at 25.89mbps. Audio Quality: Lossless DTS-HD Master 5.1, 48kHz and 24-bit. Special Features: Blu-ray exclusive alternate ending, Deleted Scenes, Sam’s Tools Of The Trade featurette, Black Ops Field Manual feature. Package includes blu-ray, DVD and digital editions.
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