I have been wanting to see this movie for a while, despite the fact that the first movie was pure gold! I threw a couple spoilers into this one. I will mark the beginning and end with an * This way you will now where to pick it up if you have not seen it yet.
Let's jump right in...
Taken 2: (2012) PG-13 (Action/Thriller)
Starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, and Maggie Grace
Overview - CIA Operative Bryan Mills (Neeson) has already saved his daughter from being sold as a sex slave to a band of dirty Albanian mobsters. In the process he killed a few baker's dozens of evil-doers. It turns out that one of the men he killed was the son of Murad Krisniqui. A notorious Albanian fiend who is now hell-bent on revenge. Bryan Mills and his wife (Janssen) are the ones that are taken this time, and it is up to Mills' daughter to rescue her mom and dad from this foe.
Review - Believe it or not, I actually took notes on this one as I watched it, so I wasn't pulling EVERYTHING out of my butt. I guess we'll see how it goes. Hopefully it does not get too wordy. Are you thinking of my butt right now? :-)
Anyone who saw "Taken" has to admit that when Liam Neeson says "I will find you, and I will kill you." you pretty much crap your pants and get into the fetal position. In this movie the father of the man he electrocuted in the basement via giant metal spikes in his legs, is out for vengeance. Truthfully, I think this plot is a crazy stretch from the get-go. This man is seen burying his son, along with the son's dead accomplices, and is super pissed because the father of one of the girls they were SELLING killed them. That's like Jeffrey Dahmer's father getting mad because someone had spilled a soda on poor little Jeffrey. Somehow I doubt it would upset his morning java. If you can look past that silly story base, then we can move on.
There is some good heart-pumping action in this one. Neeson is still the stoic, calculated, paranoid daddy he was in the first one. At the front end of the movie his daughter (Grace) acts pretty coy and reckless, despite the fact that the last time she did that she ended up being sold to a Sheik for a quarter of a million bucks. Also, his ex-wife's marriage is just about in the toilet (what a shock!), so he has to be the comforting bigger man that we all expect. So, naturally he invites his ex-wife and daughter to join him on his trip to a super dangerous country to relax and get away from all the stress of having a butt-load of cash. One thing that burns me in popular media is this notion that when you separate from your spouse you are free to do whatever, and in most cases whomever you want. Talk about needing a serious reality check. In one scene Bryan Mills (Neeson) is seen negotiating with his ex-wife Lenore (Janssen) and telling her if they decided to join him on his trip to Istanbul, that he would just hang out a while longer. If they didn't, he would just come home. My boss has a term for this kind of thinking. "First World Problems". There are people in 3rd-world countries who don't know when they are going to eat their next meal, and we worry about things like which of the 12 pizza joints within 10 miles of us to go to. Or which of the 25 national cell phone carriers we should sign with. When your biggest worry is whether or not to go to a foreign country for a week or not, then I would say you're probably ok.
So let's jump ahead and make the easy assumption. They meet him in Istanbul, and join daddy in his insanely expensive hotel. One thing that drives me nuts is when the director feels the need to fill time in the movie with a bunch of what film-makers call "Establishing Landscape" shots. Like when someone flies over the Jesus statue to establish they are in Rio. This director (Oliver Megaton) decided to fill, what felt like, 15 minutes of the movie with these scenes. Now we come to the meat of the story. Bryan and Lenore are taken by this upset father of an illegal sex salesman. Luckily Mills is ultra paranoid and has a special case of "goodies" hidden away for his daughter to use to find him. SPOILER ALERT *Mills tells his daughter to toss a live grenade out the window so he can sense how far away they are from her. Think about this for a second. "Honey, I really want you to save the two of us, so can you throw a live grenade into a populated area?" Even if she could throw it into an abandoned parking ramp, we're still talking about serious amounts of shrapnel. But hey, as long as our heroes are saved!* While in Istanbul our unlikely gang faces intense moments that are accompanied by a few bizarre choice music backers. There is a scene where Mills is darting down an alley and the music sounds like he should be about to join his wife for a Cha Cha or something. The director tried to duplicate the camera angles and movement that made the first "Taken" so good. He did an alright job, but a lot of the intense fight scenes looked rushed and choppy. But I don't claim to be a cinematographer. Another point of contention I had was his daughter's unexplained ability to go from SPOILER *failing her driver's test twice, to being able to somehow gain the knowledge of how to street race with a taxi down tiny streets* Also, how is it that when a bad guy puts a good guy in a choke hold they good guy will fight for many minutes and eventually come back, but when it is reversed it seems the good guy can choke out the bad guy within about 15 seconds? Just a thought.
Overall I would have to give this one a lower score. I think 2 1/2 out of 5 is a good ranking due to a few facts. 1) Poor story arc. 2) It's only 90 minutes long. and 3) There's no way a 17 year old attractive white girl could run around Istanbul without drawing attention. I would watch it again, but I don't think it would make my blue ray shelf.
I love writing these reviews! I love to hear from all of you folks. Let me know if there's anything you want me to talk about, or rant on. entertaindave@gmail.com and follow me on twitter @entertaindave
No comments:
Post a Comment