Kidnap, Rescue, Revenge, Organized Crime, Intertitle, Non-Chronological, Sequel With Lead Character Recast, Children Trying to Reunite Divorced Parents, Flashback to Previous Movie in the FranchiseĢ0th Century Fox, EuropaCorp, M6 Films, Grive Productions, Canal Plus, Cine Plus PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some sensuality. January 15th, 2013 by Fox Home Entertainment September 27th, 2012 (Wide) ( South Korea) October 5th, 2012 (Wide) by 20th Century Fox See the Box Office tab (Domestic) and International tab (International and Worldwide) for more Cumulative Box Office Records. Let’s put it this way: it could have been worse.All Time Domestic Box Office (Rank 401-500)Īll Time International Box Office (Rank 301-400)Īll Time Worldwide Box Office (Rank 301-400) Taken 2 is the perfect sequel to Taken: pacy and action-packed, it measures irony against evil, allowing Neeson to emerge, yet again, triumphant from a cloud of violent funk. (If you see any of these elements coalesce, run - don’t walk - to your nearest embassy.) Unlike the heroes, they do not use smartphones. They like living in dirty apartments, drinking weird liquor from clear, labelless bottles and watching football on fuzzy black and white TVs.
They wear simply awful sportswear under leather jackets.
In tenser scenes, fresh-faced Kim (Maggie Grace) is so stressed she fleetingly morphs into Peter MacNicol's sweaty Dr Janosz Poha of Ghostbusters II. For the more observant, the film’s wardrobe and makeup telegraph what to think: Famke Janssen’s Lenore (pictured above) is one tough mother, with her over-plucked eyebrows and too-dyed black hair.
(A shame that Americans aren’t taught to drive a manual transmission but a great advertisement for Mercedes.) The soothing tones of Mills to wife Lenore, chained upside down and bleeding to death, seem almost quirky. It's ironic that Kim, an unlicensed car driver, has to cram a Turkish taxi through hairy Istanbul traffic bulging with police cars. That's the secret of the whole possible Taken franchise: Neeson plays a man whom we want to believe really exists.įor all its violence and outlandishness, Taken 2 has an enormous sense of humour. In the middle of ridiculous circumstances, he is real. What's vital is that Neeson’s Mills emerges yet again as a blinding beacon of credibility. No matter that the treasures of Istanbul are blown up unnecessarily as daughter Kim tries to locate her kidnapped parents with hand grenades.
The film opens over a series of open graves in Albania, with a father (beautifully cast Rade Šerbedžija as squinty, evil Murad) swearing vengeance against Mills’ killing of his even-more-evil slave trading son in Taken. Neeson’s Mills emerges as a blinding beacon of credibility Then there's that other threat: Albanians. Now there are two new threats: she must pass her driving test and she has a boyfriend - youthful cove lucky to be alive when the couple are caught kissing. Certainly, you get the thrusting hero, Bryan Mills (Neeson) who is just as thrillingly bullheaded about his daughter Kim as he was before. It also prods them to watch the first film again when they get home.ĭirector Oliver Megaton takes over from previous director Pierre Morel to make Taken 2 work as both a sequel and standalone story.
Doing what every good sequel should, Taken 2 puts the audience back into the exciting world of the first film where they can enjoy those lovable characters as well as a new twist on the story.