CREDIT: SHANNA BESSON
Liam Neeson stars in Taken 2.

Taken 2 (2012)

Remember when Liam Neeson's daughter was Taken by some baddies a few years ago and he unleashed some serious kick-ass skills on them to get her back? Remember when he said, "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want... but I will find you and I will kill you"? Well, get ready to hear him say those same things again because this time around it's his ex-wife who has been Taken...

Taken 2, by French director Olivier Megaton, picks up not long after the events of Taken. The families of the men who were brutally slain by Bryan Mills (Neeson) have regrouped in a small French village and are bound and determined to take revenge upon Bryan and his family. Meanwhile, after learning that his ex-wife Lenore is having difficulties with her new husband, Bryan whisks her and their daughter Kim away for a family vacation in Istanbul. While there, the men who have vowed revenge upon Bryan discover that he and his family are vulnerable and they ambush him and his exwife. When Bryan manages to call Kim, he tells her that "your mother is going to be taken" and so starts the action-packed fight to keep Kim safe and get his ex-wife back.

Sound familiar? Well it does have a lot of striking similarities to its forebearer, Taken. The cast is back in all its glory the second time around — well, mostly it's Liam Neeson's glory — and they are all the stronger for having played the characters before. Maggie Grace takes on her role as Neeson's daughter Kim, though this time she has smartened up and finds a strength that she apparently didn't know she had in Taken. When Kim learns that her mother is going to be taken, she begs to be able to help, and so Grace finds herself in her fair share of the film's action-heavy sequences. She truly holds her own alongside Neeson.

Famke Janssen plays Bryan's ex-wife Lenore and, thanks in large part to her roles as Jean Grey/Phoenix in the X-Men film series, she handles her action intense scenes with relative ease.

Playing the baddie to Neeson's hero is Rade Šerbedžija, the leader of the men who are out for vengeance against Bryan. Šerbedžija plays the creepy, sinister villain with just the right amount of charisma that you'll love to hate him.

You might be thinking, "I've already seen Taken, so why would I want to see Taken 2?" Well, the answer to that is simple. Did you enjoy Taken? Well then you will enjoy Taken 2 in exactly the same way because, essentially, it is the same film. Sure, there are some minor plot distinctions between the first and second, but what it really comes down to is watching Liam Neeson kick some guy's ass to get his family back out of harm's way. And really, what more could you want from a movie?

Rating: 5 out of 5