2. No Real Urgency
The first film takes place both in the United States and in several locations in France, but also includes other international elements, namely the Albanian gang and Middle Eastern royalty. Combined, these components gave Taken a truly international scope and made the situation appear a lot more dire than in Taken 2. In the follow-up, Bryan Mills second outing is firmly focused on Istanbul, Turkey (for some reason) and, briefly, the US (obviously) at the beginning and the end. In my opinion, the production team shot themselves in the foot by keeping the film's setting in one city, and a fairly unremarkable one at that. After the ambitious first film, how could they possibly invoke the same sense of hopelessness, panic and determination in the characters when they are basically running around the same town square for the entire movie. Not only that, but, in the first film, it was made very clear that Mills had a window in which to find Kim (96 hours) after which she would become almost impossible to find. Taken 2 puts no such limitations on its protagonists and there was never really any doubt that Kim and Bryan would save Lenore. This is really a pity as, given that Turkey is known as the gateway to Asia, they could have had the Albanians attempt to take her out of Europe and into the wilds of Asia. Play on the classic Western fear of the Eastern 'Other'. Or, at the very least, they could have kept Marko's father in Albania and brought Bryan there, forcing Kim to really step up to the plate.