TAKEN, again?

Olivier Megaton, TAKEN 2 (In theaters October 5, 2012) – Liam Neeson made action film history as the former CIA agent Bryan Mills in the 2008 Taken. In the film, his daughter played by actress Maggie Grace, who was trafficked across Europe and wound up in the hands of scrupulous traffickers. Relying on the skills, he learned as an agent he tracked down his missing daughter and issued out some necessary comeuppances and uttered the most memorable line in movie history:

“I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t let my daughter go I will find you, and kill you.”

Not only Taken was a box office success–the film pretty much made any father think twice before letting their daughters too far from their sights. The truth about the Taken series of films is that something like this could almost certainly happen at any place and at any time. How’s that for a bit of reality? Here, we are again with Neesen reprising his role as the former CIA agent and this time his wife is “taken” and he will do what he does best. Kill. Figure in his daughter as a potential bad ass aiding her father in her mothers rescue and you have a film that’s pretty much like the first.

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The potential problem in all this? A film we may have already seen before. I am sure that fans of the first film can’t wait to see Neesen do the same. The exact thing. He did before:

Liam Neeson returns as Bryan Mills, the retired CIA agent who stopped at nothing to save his abducted daughter in TAKEN.  When he is targeted by a mysterious figure seeking vengeance, Bryan must employ his “particular set of skills” to protect his family against an army out to kill them. 

Switch to Mills and his wife is being “taken” and you will have the same. Only this time, they are in Istanbul instead of Paris. So now those surviving family members from the first film want revenge on Mills and his family in the second film.

My prediction: this film, for all its bells and whistles that are being put out about this sequel–it won’t measure up to the first film by a long shot. Mostly because it will try to be so much like the first film. With an extra explosion or two, and a lot more whispering phone calls.

Next time Mr. Mills consider this–stay your ass home and watch a movie or play the XBOX.

Source Taken 2