Taken
Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen and Rade Šerbedžija
Director: Olivier Megaton
Genre: Action
Running time: 91 minutes
Now showing at Cineplex Cinema
Taken 2, the sequel to 2008 Taken, is finally out. There are more guns, more blood and more violence. This time it is all inspired by vengeance. For those who missed Taken, Liam Neeson starred as Bryan Mills, a retired Intelligence agent whose daughter, Kim, was kidnapped by traffickers. He was not willing to pay a ransom and had a set of skills that made him a nightmare for wrongdoers. So he went after them, in Paris, and managed to rescue his daughter leaving dead traffickers in his wake.
In Taken 2, a few years after the last nightmare, Mills, his daughter Kim and her mother head for their hometown of Tropojë, Albania.
Kim is again at the centre of attention and this time slips away from her mother to go visit her boyfriend. Little does she know that there are unenviable eyes on the lookout for her as bait to hurt her dad. It so happens that in the same town, a funeral for the dead men from Taken 1 is taking place, where their employer pledges revenge. So Mills becomes the unwelcome guest in this town. The hunter in Taken 1 becomes the hunted in the sequel.
Mills is unsettled every time his daughter is out of sight so when she disappears, it is a recipe for some hardcore action just as the trailer partially reveals. Talking about the movie, Neeson admits that he loves doing action stunts himself because he loves fighting in real life.
Despite receiving negative reviews by critics, Taken 2 is proving to be a box office success, like its predecessor.
For its opening day in the United States and Canada, the film topped the box office, grossing US$49.5m in North America, debuting in the No. 1 spot, setting a new record for the highest-ever October opening in North America of a film rated PG-13.