Starring: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Rade Serbedzija
Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Today, I’ve just seen the movie, “Taken 2”. Liam Neeson is starting to be one of my favorite actors now. I’ve been seeing a lot of his movies in the theater lately. He makes a badass action hero, so I had to see “Taken 2”, since I loved the first one. On with the review:
Plot/synopsis: Bryan Mills (Neeson) returns and reunites with his family, Lenore and Kim, a year after the events in Paris. On a trip to Istanbul where Bryan currently lives, he gets a surprise visit from Lenore and Kim. Of course, their vacation in Istanbul does not go so well, when Bryan and Lenore was kidnapped by men who worked for Murad Hoxha (Rade Serbedzija) who is the father of the man who Bryan killed in the first film.
Some reviewers think this is close of a remake from the first movie, but I don’t think it is. The plot is different. The characters are the same yes, but it’s going for a different story here. Instead of repeating the same “oh no, the daugther’s been kidnapped”, which has already been done, why not have the main star of the film get kidnapped himself? I thought it was a good idea! I also thought teaming up Bryan and Kim together for action and try to help save Lenore, was very cool too! The Bryan and Kim team up felt like the TV show, “24”, a little bit.
As usual the action was a blast! You will see a mix of fist fighting, car chasing, explosions, and gun shooting all throughout the movie! It was an action packed ride for sure and I thought it had way more action than the first movie! In the first movie, Bryan Mills was the hero. They wanted to take this movie in a different turn, and make him look weak by kidnapping him. So he trains his daughter, Kim, to be the hero instead. So in reality, it was Kim who was the star of this movie. After the horrible stuff that Kim went through from the first film, the writers felt like it was a good idea to have her become part of the action. The action scenes were a little violent and graphic, similar like the first one. Bryan Mills wants to be a tough guy who takes no bullshit from anyone.
Some reviewers say the entire movie is much like the first one, which again I disagree with. They only took like one or two scenes from the first film I noticed. Like the one scene where Bryan has a cookout with his buddies, that was done in the sequel. Also, the one scene where he sneaks into a small room to kick some ass with a bunch of guys. That was about it. Other than that, the rest of the film was pretty original, from what I’ve seen. They just made a few scenes similar from the first, ’cause what if people haven’t even seen the first film? I can see why they did it. Not everyone have seen the first film, so they did it as a way to bring more people to the first one, in the film’s defense.
I thought “Taken 2” was great, it was just as good as the first one. There’s probably gonna be a Taken 3 ’cause Bryan said that Murad had more sons. It’s going to be even tougher to do a 3rd Taken movie ’cause Bryan, Lenore and Kim has already been taken. So who will they take next?
Score for “Taken 2” = *** = 3 stars as in (good).
Kev
K'Brocking 
Taken 2 looks good, I’ll go check it out but I also have some questions.
Why do you think you’re relavent to the local music scene anymore? You haven’t played a show in about 7 years so why do you think your views about the local music scene matter? You haven’t even seen a show except for EBJ, maybe a couple others? If you don’t go out ever then why should people care what you have to say about the scene? Aren’t you in fact a total outsider at this point?
Thanks and hope your weekend is going good.
Nope. Definitely not an outsider at all. Most everyone knows that I’ve been a prominent figure in the local music scene for the past 10 years or a little more. Most local musicians pretty much know who I am, and I’m pretty sure some of them follow my blog, and support my music. If you go to any band gig or talk to any musician and ask them if they know who Kev Brock is, chances are, they’ve probably heard of me. The Metroland guys have been pretty supportive of me from day 1 as they gave me a nod for their Reader’s Polls/Best of issues, two times, back in 2006/2007.
I know how a lot of people like to think I am nothing in local music, but I have accomplished a lot. I thought I had a pretty successful run. I thought it was big to me anyway. I played almost all venues in the area, and shared the stage with almost all bands and solo artists around here. I did a radio interview once and performed on a Public Access TV show once.
The last time I played a gig was last summer in 2011. I may have slowed down on the gigging but I still gig occasionally when the opportunity comes up. I took time off from gigging so much ’cause I wanted to improve my talent. Get better at guitar playing, singing and songwriting. Try to write a new batch of songs. I’m planning a return to the scene soon, where I’ll start gigging like crazy again, but I need to have a new batch of originals to play out first. I plan to get back out there soon and do it all over again.
Just because I don’t do much in the scene, does not mean, I don’t have the right to talk about the scene. I can talk about the scene any way, I please. These guys are doing these things publicly for the world to see, and I have the right to respond to it all. Everyone wants to treat me like a 2nd class citizen in the music scene. They like to treat me lower than the professionals, if you know what I mean. I’ve had my experiences with the music scene in the past when I was gigging out like crazy back in 2006/07, so when I’m talking about the scene, I’m only speaking from my past experiences. I went through it all myself like most musicians. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my own local music career. People think I don’t have the right to talk about the scene ’cause other musicians think I’m not in their league. They think I don’t have the same success as they do. That’s the problem with this area. The egos around here. It is the big part of why I have trouble trying to get recognized and become successful as a music artist of my own. A lot of people want to think of me as a failure in music, and I’m alright with that.
Kev
Sure you have a right to say what you want. That’s not in dispute.
If there were another person out there with your amount of shows played and recording experience and time away from scene, would you take them seriously as a musician or even critic? What separates your amount of ego from the people you criticise?
What people don’t understand is that anybody can be a music critic, as a “music fan”. As long you’re a music fan, we all have the right to say we don’t agree with this, or we don’t like this and that. It doesn’t matter how much success we have or how much we’ve done in the scene. So yes, I would take a musician or critic seriously, even if they haven’t done a lot. I’m tired of people thinking it’s wrong for musicians who haven’t done much in music that they shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions on things. It’s pretty absurd.
Here’s a question. What makes the more successful and busier musicians any better? What makes them think they can be a critic just because they have the experience of being a professional? Does that make them better than us? Hell freakin’ no! Some of those guys can be jackasses as well.
I do admit that I do have a bit of an ego problem myself, but a healthy ego. Not in a bad kind of way like most around here.
Kev
A healthy ego ? Good description.
I despised this movie, but nice review on your part! Check out my own when you have the time http://conordcfc.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/film-review-taken-2-2012/