Taken 2: Take Harder

On the plane to Melbourne I had many plans. I was going to read, to work on a project proposal, and maybe draft a blog post... But I kept seeing Liam Neeson doing ninja moves out of the corner of my eye; a guy in the next seat was watching Taken 2. There was nothing for it. I put my book away, set the tray table down, plugged in my earphones and selected the film. Follow me under the cut for my review of Taken 2 and why taking Liam Neeson's family is a terrible idea.

There are only a few reasons you'd want to watch Taken 2. Maybe you'd seen the previous film. Maybe you are in the mood for an action film. Mostly what you want to see is Liam Neeson kicking all of the ass. You're practically cheering for it. This is definitely how I started the film.

The story follows Neeson's character (yeah, I am just going to call him Neeson because really, do we care who the character is?) as he struggles to continue a relationship with his wife & daughter while maintaining some normalcy after the events of the first movie. He's split from his wife; he's giving his daughter driving lessons, stalking her boyfriend to suss him out, and all the usual things that obsessive ninja fathers do. They get stood up for a holiday; Neeson asks them to join him after he finishes a job in Istanbul.

There's not much else you need to know except that the families of those people Neeson's character killed on the last outing are out for revenge. They want him, his family, anything that he holds dear and they want to kill those things. Slowly and painfully.

What ensues is a lot of Liam Neeson ass kicking, explosions, guns, high speed car chases, show downs, knife fighting, and all the good stuff.

The thing about the movie that I found myself liking most, after Ninja Neeson of course, was that they gave Maggie Grace, playing his daughter Kim, much more of a strong role. Kim has a lot of banter with her dad, does some pretty brave stuff along the way & generally has more of a say in how she reacts to the situation in this film. After escaping the goons chasing her she demands to help her dad escape & even ends up driving in a high speed, neck breaking chase. It's cool.

The wife Lenore spends most of the movie being hauled around, knifed & jostled. It's not interesting but it's necessary to perpetuate the story. Her torture is fairly uncomfortable but not over the top. I think the part where they cut her neck and then hung her upside down from chains to watch her bleed out was the worst.

All up, Taken 2 was a solid action flick with a fairly decent plot but not rocket science and although I was a little jittery afterwards, it wasn't the thrill fest that the first movie was. Watch this film when you are in the mood for action & yelling at the TV.