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I’m certain that I’m not that only movie fan who was more than a little disappointed upon the release of Taken 2 a few months ago. Given that I am such an aficionado of the first film, I was only too pleased to welcome another in the series. That was until I actually watched it. Now, even months later, I’m still bothered at how much of a let-down the movie was. Thus, I have laid out five reasons why I think that the sequel left a lot of us dissatisfied and, to be blunt, marred our memories of the Taken franchise overall.

5. Lost the Plot

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Well, to start with, if a movie doesn’t have absolutely airtight plot then no amount of chase scenes or fight sequences can truss it up. Although, in the first film, no-one really believes that a father (even one who is a secret agent) could actually track down his daughter, whose has been kidnapped by a international prostitution ring. But, just the fact that it is about a young girl who has been taken whilst on holiday is a semi-realistic plot and, unfortunately, has happened in the real world. I feel with these sort of films, as long as there is some semblance of realism, that the more fantastic elements are more enjoyable.

However, the same cannot be said for Taken 2, which is almost completely implausible. Most of all, the fact that the daughter of Bryan Mills, Kim (Maggie Grace), goes from  traumatised, ex-kidnap victim to Bryan’s apprentice in-training in a hot minute. Talking to her kidnapped dad through his micro-phone (which he has had conveniently hidden on him the whole time) she manages to locate his, and Lenore’s, holding cell (Yeah, in the same city as well). This is achieved by her throwing grenades off a roof, and into random directions, so that Bryan can use his X-Men like abilities to tell HER where HE is. Okay, yeah sure! Granted it was an fun piece of poetic licence, but I just gave up hope completely when Bryan and Kim crashed into the US Embassy in a yellow taxi, without being shot or, at least, waterboarded.

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