By Kelli Henderson/entertainment editor
Photo courtesy 20th Century Fox
The certain set of skills are back. Liam Neeson returns to the screen as Bryan Mills in Taken 2.
The short sequel of the 2008 film delivers with good fight scenes and suspense but could really do without the clichéd dialogue.
Bryan Mills, a former CIA agent, must fight the vengeful father of his daughter Kim’s former kidnapper, whom he slayed in the first film.
Neeson, for a 60-year-old man, has built up a reputation through a string of recent action films for being somewhat of a bad ass. But this reputation has its downsides.
The dialogue between characters leading up to fight scenes seems unneeded when one expects blood to be shed by Neeson and a night stick.
And scenes of the family’s melodramatic heart-to-hearts are boring.
The film also includes jokes that recount Taken and are not laugh-out-loud funny, maybe smirk-worthy at best. But viewers do not come to a Taken movie to laugh or to watch a father-daughter relationship blossom. They come to see him crash into the U.S. Embassy while soldiers shoot at him in a stolen taxicab.
The film does contain good scenes. The action is well-choreographed, and the camera does not shake.
At first, thae film may seem a little slow, but just wait. It gets better.
