Bryan Mills is back. This time we’re in Istanbul where everyone’s favourite retired CIA agent is on a job, however it quickly turns pear-shaped in usual ‘Taken’ fashion when Mills invites his daughter and her mother Lenore to join him. It would seem the family is somewhat broken following the drama of the first ‘Taken’ and we get a glance at the tough ex-agent’s soft side and his guilt for causing his family to be under threat by a vengeful Albanian gang. However, the family aren’t together for long as a series of unfortunate incidences leads to the capture of Lenore and then Bryan. Spotlight on daughter Kim: Maggie Grace (Lost, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part 2) is forced to go it alone and so the writers have managed to make a sequel simply by inverting the previous film.
‘Very clever!’ I hear you cry. Actually it’s not. Everyone working in movies would grab something, particularly something which didn’t cost much to produce and subsequently became very popular and get as many films out of it as possible. I mean, look at Rocky! However, there is a general rule which is that when you run out of ideas, stop. There is a definite sense in this film that to make a sequel to something quite so simplistic as the original ‘Taken’, an extra ‘special something’ would be needed to carry it off. When you add to this the fact that there is definite dilution of the action in this follow-up as evidenced by its shift down to a 12A rating, the film loses its greatest selling point which was the style of action not dissimilar to that first brought to us in 2002 with the birth of the ‘Bourne’ movies.
So despite this, why would you still go to see it? It’s undeniable there were aspects of ‘Bourne’ in this movie particularly in Kim’s roof-top chase scene and even down to the musical score so although the action was diluted it was still entertaining. Despite it’s highly simplistic plot and set-up, sometimes it’s good not to have four different plot arcs and some sub-characters which seem to serve no real purpose. Also in a way the simplicity keeps you very much focused and ‘team Mills’ not unlike the effect of the character Jack Bauer in ‘24’. There’s a great scene where Bryan played by Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List, Batman Begins) has to try to get his daughter to find him by using everybody’s favourite locating device: hand grenades! Some people would think Istanbul’s not the best place but apparently not.
There are flashes of genius like this throughout and the acting isn’t bad with Bond girl Famke Janssen returning as Lenore and Maggie Grace putting in a reasonable performance as the traumatised daughter. The truth is there’s just something missing, whether it’s the tracksuit-clad Albanians who hardly cut it as sinister captors, the sense that Bryan Mills is very much retired or the simplicity of the whole thing which makes this more of a slow fizzle than a loud bang. A classic case of over-milking what was a one – off hit. For now, the makers of ‘Bourne’ needn’t worry.
Three Stars.
