Taken 2

I am fairly certain that I have complained on this site about writers basically getting away with telling their wet dreams and passing them off as screenplays. There are far too many movies where geeky kids end up with the quirky 17 year old hot chick that happens to like T-Rex and Elvis Costello but for some reason also happens to be single. Riiiiiiiight, it’s hard enough to find kids that know who Nirvana is let alone T-Rex. I guess the point is this is the only logical explanation behind the plot of Taken 2 Hours of Your Life Away! We all know the reason why this movie was made and that’s because of the all mighty dollar! Middle aged men flocked to the first one because they all secretly believe that they are still in shape and can kick anyone’s ass who tries to mess with their families. Well actually Ving Rhames probably could still do this but he’s about it. 

In this implausible sequel, the father of one of the slain Albanian henchmen from Taken 1 and a Half Hours of Your Life Away demands revenge on Bill (Liam Neeson). So he unleashes this plan to not only find and kill Bill (heh) but to also make him suffer by forcing him to watch his wife slowly murdered while also selling his daughter to the lowest bidder so that her body will be used so many times over that not even a dog would want to touch her. Ok, so I give the evil Albanian some credit for his ruthlessness but that’s about all the credit Luc Besson (The Professional)  gives Albanians in this movie. Every bad guy, who also just so happens to be Albanian is either dumb, slow, out of shape, ugly, or just plain evil. We all know there’s no love lost between the Frenchies and Albania and Besson uses this creative outlet to literally beat up on his neighbors.  Bill almost effortlessly disposes of dozens of them even though he’s pushing 60 and has the agility of a slug. By the end of the movie they just give up on even trying to give you somewhat believable action scenes. He somehow develops the Vulcan touch of death and people just magically die. It’s all so lame but not nearly as lame as the tortuous set up scenes in which my friend said were more brutally violent to watch than the actual fight scenes themselves ..

All of the dialogue is so forced that you can’t help but deliver it with a wooden performance. And it doesn’t help that Maggie Grace is back as Bill’s daughter. Even though all she did was run in the first one, you could tell how awful of an actress she was but for whatever  reason Besson decides to give her an expanded role in part 2. She has a couple of cool scenes where she throws grenades at buildings that she just assumes are empty all while wearing a bathing suit. But overall it’s like being that poor man in the Klondike Bar commercial where he has to listen to his wife talk for 5 seconds. Too much pain even for the tasty goodness that is promised to come afterwards. Poor Famke Janssen is far removed from her James Bond On A Top days and is basically reduced to just being in a coma for the majority of the movie. She really should’ve just reprised her role from Goldeneye and begun cunningly seducing each one of her capturers. And mid act she could have choked each one to death with her legs and said something cool like “These aint no jive turkey legs”. Ok I know that was awful but maybe this movie needed some bad jokes thrown in to actually make it entertaining. 

As a matter of fact I am getting bored just writing about this crapfest which is made evident by the fact I’m writing about jive turkey legs. The action is lame, the story is lame, the acting is lame, and my popcorn was stale! I This movie was really WEAK and I suggest avoiding it!