10 Movies That Abandoned Awesome Ideas Halfway Through
2. Bryan Gets Taken - Taken 2
Believe it or not, Taken 2 actually started off with some solid promise, as it appeared to offer up an inspired role reversal of the original film, with ex-CIA officer Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) being kidnapped along with his wife Lenore (Famke Janssen).
Rather than simply have Byran once again fighting to rescue either his wife or his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), in the early going it seemed like Kim was going to slide into the protagonist role and have to rescue her taken parents.
Yet despite a brilliant mid-film sequence where Bryan helps Kim triangulate his location using grenades, before long Bryan has been freed from captivity and is back into action mode.
As for Kim? She's dropped off at the American embassy and the inspired idea of a daughter fighting to save her parents is dropped like a bad habit.
Though having Liam Neeson spend most of the movie as a hostage would've naturally bothered some viewers keen to see a glorified rehash of the first film - which is more-or-less what this is - for a little while there it seemed like Taken 2 wanted to be more than a garden variety sequel.