Over the weekend, Scarlett and I had dinner with her friends, and tried to figure out what to watch on PPV. While I was pulling for Gangs Of New York (just to see the ridiculous Daniel Day-Lewis again), we settled on the newly released Taken 2, which is topping the Netflix, Amazon, and Time Warner rentals...the people can't be wrong, right? Spoilers and shit ahead, because we're reviewing this film...
So, what is Taken 2 about?
It's Liam Neeson, reprising his role as Bryan Mills, a former CIA badass, who has to rescue himself and his wife, who have been...taken!
Wait, he's taken? Who do you rescue yourself from being taken?
Don't ask silly questions like that. Somebody has to be taken in a movie called Taken 2. Maybe they were being clever with the "2" as two people were taken. But I doubt it. There's a lot in the film that shows they were not showing much thought and depth, and certainly not expecting the audience have much intelligence. More on that later.
Well, do I need to see Taken to follow Taken 2?
No. That's the beauty of sequels with numbers in them. They rehash the pertinent info and do not rely on you following a series. Anybody feel like they couldn't follow Fast 5ive (or is it Fa5t Five?) having not seen any of the other films? Have any of you seen all of them anyhow?
Okay, so tell me about Taken 2?
The film opens with a funeral service in Albania for a bunch of bodies, and he the main baddie, the Eastern European version of The Most Interesting Guy In The World, promises the get revenge for all the sons and brothers and cousins and grandchildren that Liam Neeson killed in the first film.
That's touching.
Sure, because we all feel that the villains who kidnap and human traffic and do all kinds of must still have mothers and fathers who love them. Even though they are clearly shitty parents. It's a decent idea to drive the plot, but I was distracted by the fact that everybody other than Most Interesting Guy look like generic E-Eurotrash.
Everybody is half tracksuit-wearing, swarthy, bearded and / or balding, and when there's going to be nameless and (mostly) faceless people getting killed, it's going to get confusing. And there must have been a thin costume budget, because the guy who's wearing a wool-lined denim jacket and camo pants at the funeral, is still wearing it weeks later when he and the cronies are going up against Liam.
So how do they get taken?
Hold up, there's bunch of dreadfully slow-moving and unnecessary scenes to establish things for the first-timers. Liam and is trying to help his daughter pass her driving test. Liam's ex-wife is having marital troubles and is upset she and their daughter can not go on a trip together. Liam tracks his daughter down at her new boyfriend's place, because he's got a "particular set of skills" and she's just trying to live a normal life.
There's about 15 minutes before they all get to Istanbul, and there's a lot of stuff that they put in for no reason, like the baddies interrogating the French policeman who knew Neeson from the first film. Or a 30 second BBQ with Liam and his other ex-CIA buddies. They want to establish things to reference later, which they don't need to.
Can we get to the takening?
Sure. We're almost a third of the movie in and Liam and wifey Famke Janssen are taking a drive around Istanbul after daughter Kim wants them to rekindle their relationship (also hinted at unnecessarily by the CIA buds), and he notes they are being followed.
So they get taken?
Yes.
Not that easily, I hope?
No. Liam gives us a car chase and some fisticuffs, but it's kinda tame, even when he's beating guys with a baton. He runs a little slower than the first film, and the fights are not as, uh, lethal. It sorely needs some neck snapping sounds or hard hits. It just feels watered down. Or maybe he has a new particular set of skills that are a touch softer.
What about their daughter?
They try to take her, but she's able to elude capture. Though if they did catch her, they'd probably let her go because she's so annoying. Maggie Grace already looked like she was too old in the first film, and here she looks like she should have a kid that taking a driving test, not her. And she never answers her damn phone (as unnecessarily established in an earlier scene). But she finally does, and papa gives her instructions how to get away.
But wasn't he taken?
Um, yeah, but he had an iPod shuffle sized phone transmitter hidden in his sock. Of course. And she's one of the few numbers on the speed dial (along with his useless CIA buddies, who don't answer).
So it's a role reversal, where she saves the day?
Not quite. He talks her through a crazy, elaborate plan to determine where he and Phoenix were taken, because even though he was taken, he was counting seconds that he traveled and whether or not he felt a specific turn in direction or heard sounds to identify where he went.
That doesn't sound so crazy.
Well, he has her throwing grenades off buildings and listening for the explosions to determine the time and distance from the sound traveling. Oh, and she's running along rooftops and jumping across buildings while eluding baddies. And she's able to find the exact place he they are being kept, and drop a gun down a vent so he can make an escape.
So, film over, right?
Nope. Phoenix has been gashed in the throat and is slowly bleeding to death, and gets taken to another place, while Liam is saving his daughter from her pursuers and dispatching nameless baddies while trying to get to MIG. And there's another big car chase, with Maggie Grace driving better than The Dukes Of Hazzard.
I guess she'll be able to pass that driving test when she takes it, eh?
Leave the jokes to me, alright? It's punctuated with a scene that sum the movie up for me - doing unnecessary things.
When Liam has her drive them to the U.S. Embassy, but rather than pull up, makes her drive through the barricade and machine gun fire. He makes a phone call to his CIA pals and tells them what he did so in order to make a call "so they don't get shot". It allows for a not-touching moment of father and daughter to talk in a bullet riddled car, so he can find mama and "do what he does best". Seriously, what the fuck. That car would have been surrounded and fired on before he made any phone call. It's like they made them do this stupid thing just to have a reason to include the CIA friends, who are unnecessary.
What happens next?
Liam retraces his steps and finds the MIG and his crew and his wife, killing his way through the fodder until it's just him and the lead henchman, who we are supposed to believe is a scary badass from his earlier interrogation scenes.
So they have an awesome fight!
Fight, yes. Awesome, no. This dude is like, a full foot shorter than Liam, and is kinda average. Given the height and reach Liam advantage, we have to watch an unbelievable bout grappling in a bathhouse, that ends with Liam throwing him down, which breaks the guy's everything, and his finishing move is to cover the guy's face and close his eyes. BECAUSE HE'S DEAD! Very weak.
At least there's a big climax with MIG, right?
If you mean, that Liam uses the guy's phone to call MIG and find where he is in the bathhouse because it's ringing (apparently, nobody answers their phone in the movie), then yes. The MIG is cowering in a corner, and Liam offers to let him live in order to stop the cycle of violence that would be created if he killed him, since Liam is as bored as we are and (in a very Roger Murtaugh-esque way) is "tired of it all". So Liam, shows he'll willing to walk away from it and drops his gun, but the MIG picks it up and tries to shoot...but Liam has taken the remaining bullet out!
The MIG gets killed in a most unremarkable fashion by getting pushed against the wall. He gets impaled on a clothes hanger or something that you see for a split second, but you can't really tell. Yawn.
And he holds the wife safely, fade to black, roll credits...
Nope. We get a few more satisfying minutes of Maggie Grace passing her driving test, and the whole family getting milkshakes at a generic restaurant at Any Pier, Los Angeles...with the boyfriend from the beginning showing up!
And thus the film is capped with more useless stuff, which continues the underwhelming end last half and basically sums up the movie. Where Taken was an exciting film where you get to see Liam rack up a body count looking for his daughter, this sequel is unsatisfying, even on it's own, and definitely - like so much in the movie, unnecessary.
