Taken 2

Liam Neeson returns as the CIA agent whose daughter (Maggie Grace) was kidnapped back in 2008. This time, in Istanbul, Neeson and his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) are snatched by the vengeful father of the original villain—and daughter gets away to help Dad free himself by following his orders over her cellphone. Writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen press their luck by trying to recycle their earlier success, but they can’t wring another story out of it; they just repeat the old one, with flourishes that make it less credible, less suspenseful and less satisfying than it was before. They compound their mistake by bringing in the aptly named Olivier Megaton to direct. Megaton employs his usual style, hammering away at us like a bully in a bar. The ending sets us up for—shudder!—Taken 3, 4 and 5.