Girl's Eye View: Taken 2

Allow me to quickly introduce myself: My name is Kara, and I live over at www.karaschatter.com . I have no experience in the movie industry, other than watching and appreciating them. I thought I would offer up my movie reviewing skills, or lack thereof, to The Basement to give readers a female perspective on movies, new, old, good, and bad.

By no means did I intend for the title of this post to rhyme. But it does. Moving on …

When I originally found out that there was going to be a sequel to Liam Neeson’s Taken, I was pretty excited. After all, the original was pretty epic. (Haven’t seen it? Shame on you!) There’s nothing better than an angry, ex-CIA operative going all out in a quest to find his daughter, who’s been taken by crazy Albanian human traffickers. So, after seeing the chaos and mayhem Neeson’s character caused in the original, the sequel should be just as good or even better, right?

WRONG.

I watched Taken 2 just a couple days after it was released on DVD/On Demand, and just now am I finally able to gather my thoughts on the film. I was so disappointed by it. I don’t know if it’s because it was relatively hyped up and the first one was just that good, or if it was just lacking something, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling Maggie Grace’s character, Kim, and the role she played in the story. Also - throwing grenades on rooftops while garnering no attention? Doubtful. Dropping guns down pipes and them not getting stuck? Yeaaah right.

It also seemed like Neeson’s character, Bryan, escaped a little too easily and his ex-wife not easily enough. “Okay, Lenore, I’m free. I’ll be back in a jiffy to get you though, no worries.”

Really, I just can’t gather up enough words to describe how disappointed I really am by it. I just wanted MORE - more battles, better struggles, more developed plot … MORE! In the end, I sadly give Taken 2 a Bad.

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