In Theaters: TAKEN 2 (2012)

TAKEN 2
(France - 2012)

Directed by Olivier Megaton.  Written by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen.  Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Rade Sherbedgia, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, D.B. Sweeney, Luke Grimes, Kevork Malikyan. (PG-13, 90 mins)

It's doubtful that anyone at 20th Century Fox was expecting much when they released the Luc Besson-produced TAKEN in US theaters in January 2009, a full year after its release in its native France.  They almost dumped it as a straight-to-DVD release.  Of course, TAKEN ended up being a major sleeper hit and is regarded by many as a modern classic of action cinema, and it jump-started a second career for Liam Neeson as a merciless, stoical ass-kicker of the highest order.  The SCHINDLER'S LIST Oscar-nominee was already a respected actor, and probably would've been content doing serious, smaller films like THE OTHER MAN, CHLOE, and FIVE MINUTES IN HEAVEN, but when TAKEN blew up, Neeson found himself an overnight action star and a source of quotable and iconic badass gravitas.  How many times over the last few years have you heard references to the "I have a very particular set of skills..." speech from TAKEN?  Or his instant classic "Release the Kraken!" from the 2010 remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS?   Neeson plays similar figures in 2011's UNKNOWN and Joe Carnahan's terrific THE GREY from earlier this year, but it was TAKEN that got the ball rolling on Neeson's action-hero metamorphosis, and now, at 60, he's the unlikely Charles Bronson of his generation.  TAKEN reinvented Neeson as a big-screen action star at an age when many leading men begin the transition to elder statesman character/supporting roles or television.  In 2012, because of a movie that almost didn't get a US theatrical release, Liam Neeson is more popular than ever.

Neeson!

TAKEN 2 has Neeson's retired CIA agent Bryan Mills doing a freelance security detail for a dignitary in Istanbul when he's paid a surprise visit by daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, 29 and playing about 17) and ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), who's just split with her second husband.  Kim tries to play Cupid for her parents, and the impromptu family vacation is interrupted by Murad (the great Rade Sherbedgia), the vengeful father of the Albanian sex trafficker who abducted Kim in Paris in the first film and was tortured and killed by Mills.  This time, Mills and Lenore are taken by Murad's goons and Kim is briefly on her own until Mills manages to escape and meet up with her, forming a father-daughter action team before dropping Kim off at the US embassy and going back to Murad's hideout to rescue Lenore.

Neeson!

If you thought TAKEN was a tad on the implausible side, wait until you see TAKEN 2.  It's ridiculous even by Luc Besson standards, whether Mills is giving Lenore ludicrously complicated directions to flee their pursuers ("When the car stops, go through the back of that store and into the alley. Turn right and walk to the next street. Listen to me!  Focus!  Turn right until you get to the next street, then take a left and go to the steps.  At the bottom of those steps..."), on the phone with Kim instructing her how to pinpoint his location by lobbing grenades all over Istanbul (hearing an explosion, Mills says "That's closer...go further east!"), or, after being taken and with a hood over his head in the back of a van, counting out seconds and memorizing sounds, making mental notes of them as the van passes ("13...14...boat" and "24...25...music," and "30...31...dog").  Of course, when he retraces his steps later on to find Lenore, the same old guy is playing his music and the same dog is barking, thereby making it extremely easy to find Murad's hideout.  And once again, Mills, a private citizen, manages to create what must surely rank as an international incident in a major world city and no one from that city's police force or government goes after him or contacts the US to tell them what's going on, even when he crashes through a barrier outside the US embassy and almost drives straight into the building.  Nope...just a quick phone call to his CIA buddy at home (Leland Orser), and it's all cleared up, no questions asked, enjoy the rest of your visit to Istanbul.

Neeson!

There's an undeniable familiarity to TAKEN 2 that prevents it from feeling as fresh and vital as TAKEN, which honestly wouldn't be nearly as beloved as it is were it not for Neeson.  He very capably carries TAKEN 2 on his broad shoulders, and it's certainly entertaining, but so outlandish and unbelievable that it often plays like a parody of TAKEN, or at least a parody of Luc Besson productions (no joke...COLOMBIANA is straight-faced and serious next to this).  I've seen comedies this year where I didn't laugh as much as I did during TAKEN 2.

Neeson!

Director Olivier Megaton, a longtime Besson protege (TRANSPORTER 3, COLOMBIANA) who will never live up to his awesome surname, goes more for the blurry/shaky-cam action sequences in a way that the comparitively-restrained Pierre Morel didn't with the first film.  There's some good action, especially the sequence where Kim is chased across some Istanbul rooftops by a couple of Murad flunkies, and it largely follows the same template as the previous film:  30 minutes of exposition, 60 minutes of non-stop, explosive action and thrills.  TAKEN 2 is a pretty dumb movie and obviously lacks the lighting-in-a-bottle feel of the first film, but Neeson proves here that his determined intensity and steely screen presence are enough to sell even something this brainless.