Taken 2: Actiony Goodness Holds Its Own

Having not seen Taken, I was nervous to review Taken 2 as I was unsure if I would be able to follow the backstory and be engaged by the characters; fortunately Taken 2 is a stand alone joy ride full of heart racing action in an unexpectedly believable setting.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) returns as a retired CIA agent a few years removed from the events of the first film. Murad (Rade Serbedzidja) (father of Taken’s villain Marko), vows revenge on Bryan and leads a gang of bad guys to kidnap Bryan, his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), and daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). The would-be kidnappers underestimate Bryan (again) and he spends the entirety of the film trying to save himself, both Lenore and Kim, and rid the world of the Taken villains once and for all.

Veteran French screenwriter Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Taken, La Femme Nikita, The Transporter 1 & 2, Lockout, and Columbiana) brings his uniquely authentic action style to the screen once again. Besson’s villains are not the cookie cutter variety seen in many an action film, he creates a horde of flawed yet believable antagonists. Murad is balding, old, fat, and incredibly slow. But he’s smart, and has put together a team of henchmen that span the physical spectrum from thin and small to average build, without a “muscleman” in the bunch. Bryan Mills squares off against his foes, matching wits against wits. However, Besson did plant a few cliché action scenes; the ‘Take off our shirts and fight without weapons” scene and the “fighting over the one gun back and forth” scene, for example. But a majority of Neeson’s action scenes are of the well-organized Special Forces variety. The ending might be a little disappointing as it’s slightly anti-climactic, but Act II is so fun it just doesn’t matter by then.

Where the screenplay suffers is in the dialogue department. In particular, Besson’s attempt at re-creating “The American Experience” is hard on the ears. In the beginning of the film Neeson (who is often mocked for his portrayal of Americans) is having a conversation with fellow retired CIA agents. His tediously delivered line “Oh, can’t we just talk about Basketball?” is accentuated by the “typical American” surroundings of potato chips, beers, and poker played outside an apartment complex. Throughout the film the dialogue serves as more of a hindrance to the story than a help, and the film almost would have been better served sans dialogue. Any conversation over one or two word exchanges dragged and felt incredibly forced. Still, the nail biting action more than made up for dialogue deficiencies.

Taken 2 delivers on what it advertises; it’s a thrillingly fun, marginally cheesy, stand-alone sequel. Neeson proves that The Expendables cast aren’t the only old dudes in the industry that can wield a gun with shocking efficiency, and he’s not over the top with the “I’m getting too old for this stuff” mannerisms. This is a movie that has easily set itself up for a third installment without burying itself with sequel clichés.