Taken 2

“Taken 2," the imaginatively titled follow-up to the 2008 surprise mega-hit, calls to mind that important lesson we learned in ’90s Bond spoof “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery:” that even a supervillain’s expendable henchmen have friends and families. In Jay Roach’s parodical tour de force, we witnessed a wife, a son and a group of drinking buddies grieving over their recently lost loved ones, as flattened by slow-moving steamrollers and devoured by ill-tempered, mutated sea bass. In the foreboding prologue of “Taken 2,” we see such characters bitter and enraged, solemnly swearing bloody revenge against the one who took their sons and brothers from them so suddenly and so viciously. Slaughtering badguys left, right and centre has its consequences, y’see.

You will recall the murderous rampage embarked upon by ex-CIA agent and all-round super-dad Bryan Mills in the enormously entertaining (but worryingly xenophobic) first “Taken." The one-man army, played by a grizzled Liam Neeson, stormed through the seedy back alleys of Paris, all guns blazing, in desperate search of his kidnapped teenage daughter, snatched on holiday by slimy sex traffickers. The towering body count rose as the Eurotrash piled up: one memorably grisly scene of semi-comical torture saw Bryan channeling Jack Bauer of “24,” electrocuting a whimpering kidnapper to death via metal rods puncturing his thighs. It turns out that man had a bad dad: the dangerous Murad Krasniqi (Rade Šerbedžija, disappointingly two-dimensional), who now seeks justice.

“Taken 2” is set four years after its popular predecessor, which reinvented its aging Irish star as an all-American action hero. Taken this time — and the word “taken” is used frequently in “Taken 2” — are Bryan and his estranged ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen, “X-Men”), with whom he was beginning to bond again. They are ambushed by Murad’s men in Istanbul, where Bryan has a well-paying bodyguarding gig and where Lenore and daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, “Lockout”) pay him a surprise visit. As she sneakily ducks out of a family outing, Kim narrowly avoids abduction this time round, while mum and dad are held captive in a dimly lit basement, chained to pipes — this, however, does not prevent Bryan from using his hidden mobile phone, as the baddies inexplicably leave the both of them alone to go watch some footie.

The clock is ticking. Hung upside down, Lenore has her neck slashed by one of Murad’s men in a manner that will kill her slowly. Bryan ascertains that with the blood rushing to her head Lenore has 30 minutes until she bleeds to death. In a peculiar twist, it is up to Kim, with the audible aid of daddy, to save her kidnapped parents. This leads to two midway set-pieces memorable for all the wrong reasons, as Bryan — using his apparent superpowers — is able to deduce his precise location by getting Kim to 1) draw circles on a map of Istanbul using a pencil and a shoelace, and 2) randomly lob live grenades around the city centre.

Whether or not this works I will leave for you to find out, but know that “Taken 2” twists basic logic like Bryan twists badguys’ necks. Sadly, the impossibly resourceful killing machine doesn’t get to do that very much in his second outing, at least not to the same blood-splattered level he did back in ‘08. To find out why, look no further than the film’s unexpectedly mild 12A rating. For comparison, the giddily sadistic “Taken” was a hard-15 in theatres and an 18 on home release, thanks to the aforementioned electro-treatment scene getting an extended cut. The sequel is a different story: with off-screen stabbings, bloodless bullet wounds and incoherently edited fistfights, it’s difficult not to feel like brutal Bryan’s gone all soft.

The first “Taken" was scribed by French action maestro Luc Besson and directed by Pierre Morel, helmers of the breathlessly energetic parkour extravaganza “District 13." “Taken 2” sees Besson returning, but sitting in the director’s chair is the boldly monikered Olivier Megaton (real name: Fontana), maker of the dreary “Colombiana" and the dismal “Transporter 3." On the basis of “Taken 2”’s action, Megaton was hired for his name and name only: the film’s more high-octane sequences are plagued with the same visual incomprehensibility showcased in Megaton’s “Transporter” threequel.

The action, clearly inspired by that of Paul Greengrass’ thrilling “Bourne" films, is a puzzling mess. It’s presented in that fashion where we see all-too-brief flickers of movement and are left to piece them together ourselves. This is fulfilled without the stylistic grace or raw sense of excitement with which Greengrass framed and edited his action, instead carelessly sliced and diced to within an inch of its life. You’ll be hard-pressed to tell who’s punching who, who’s shooting who and who’s driving which hurtling vehicle.

Neeson, who continued his newfound action-man status in “Unknown” and “The A-Team,” snoozes his way through much of the film. The Oscar-nominated 60-year-old may growl every line like the wolves he bravely battled in “The Grey,” but he performs with all the care and enthusiasm of a man picking up a paycheck. Most disappointingly of all, at no point does Bryan deliver a classic, “I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you"-esque monologue, supplied only with a curiously out-of-character peace-offering speech during the underwhelming climax.

Before the first “Taken” took back almost ten times its $25 million budget, Neeson was convinced the project would wind up going straight to DVD. That should have been the case with “Taken 2:” this is a half-hearted, ham-fisted attempt at recapturing the visceral thrills of the original film. It will divert some, but the premise is tired by now, and it lacks the bone-snapping verve with which Morel directed the first film. Looking at the numbers “Taken 2” is currently raking in, “Taken 3” seems inevitable: Kim’s pet gerbil may want to keep its cage securely locked.

4/10