5. There Was Never a Climax
I would suppose the car chase scene was initially the precursor to the climax of this film. But when I realized the daughter was going to be our driver and she couldnt pass the State of Californias DMV requirement to successfully operate a motor vehicle, all I could do was count the amount of times she crashed into something to keep my attention until we moved on to the next scene. Soon the final scene between hero and villain would follow, and in probably the only redeeming quality of the plot, we have our hero give the villain a chance to move on and continue living. And while, for a mere moment, I thought this would be the end and lead to a 3rd film, the villain meets his end, trying to kill the Neeson character. I never at any point felt like this scene was tense, crucial, or even critical to the already splintered story. Our villain could have died off screen and probably would not have even cared, much like I felt with this final scene. Taken 2 beyond disappointing for sure. The film feels like it was rushed through production. One would think that with the original Taken being Liam Neesons most successful solo outing, that more care would have been into making this sequel. Its a wasted opportunity. While financially the sequel was still a success, it should not have been. Its a bad movie on multiple levels that fails to entertain throughout its 90 minute runtime.