Why the women of Taken 2 are worth dying for

MANILA, Philippines - Maggie Grace was a damsel in distress in the high-octane action-thriller Taken that hit the big screen in 2008 and became a surprise blockbuster that catapulted Liam Neeson to his current status as a bankable action hero.

Playing the daughter of Neeson’s ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills, Grace’s character Kim gets abducted upon arrival in Europe by sex traffickers, and later rescued by her dad using his "very particular set of skills" that make him a nightmare for bad guys.

Four years later, the 20th Century Fox movie that earned $224 million in box office is making a comeback, this time turning the fragile Grace into an unlikely screen heroine. Kim is enlisted by her dad to help him and her mom Lenore (Famke Janssen) escape after they were taken hostage by the avenging father of one of the mobsters Bryan killed in the first outing.

Kim has several death-defying stunts, running and leaping across the rooftops of the exotic Istanbul and driving like a maniac in a heart-stopping car chase that ended in an explosive train collision.

“My role in Taken 2 is fully empowered and I just loved it,” the astonishingly beautiful actress gushed at a recent press junket at the posh Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City’s Battery Park.

Famke Janssen as Neeson’s ex-wife

“It’s fun to make action movies and I really like it,” added Grace, star of Twilight: Breaking Dawn (1 and 2), Lockout, and the TV series Lost, among others. “When I saw the script of Taken 2 and the required action scenes for Kim, I just couldn’t wait to do them. Kim was a passive victim in the first film. But she’s transformed in Taken 2. Under the tutelage of her father, she’s developed some of her instincts and is much better equipped to cope with the crisis during their family vacation in Istanbul. Kim’s her father’s daughter, and she’s finding out what she’s capable of. Something incredible happened to her and she reconstructed herself. She doesn’t want to be passive again.”

But unlike Grace, Famke Janssen — who is known for her badass roles in popular action flicks like X-Men and Goldeneye — was not given a share of action screen time by director Olivier Megaton. This time around, the former Bond girl is the damsel in distress.

We couldn’t help but make Janssen know our disappointment over this. And the glamorous star couldn’t agree more.

“I know,” the Amsterdam native told The Philippine Star. “Isn’t that crazy?”

Janssen, nonetheless, said she was told that her scenes as a helpless hostage are necessary to give her character a bit more humanity and a reason for Bryan and Kim to risk their lives and limbs.

She said it’s also comforting to note that her role in the sequel is now likeable, unlike in the first one, where everyone called Lenore a b____.

“My initial reaction when I was told that we’re doing Taken 2 is that they should just have Liam be taken while I go help him out,” Janssen said. “So that would have been the movie you wanted to see, but nobody else apparently wanted to see Liam being kidnapped only to be rescued by me (laughs).”

Will there be Taken 3? No one knows, according to the three lead stars.

“There’s no one else to be taken after Taken 2,” Janssen pointed out. “It won’t be easy to think of a new or a better plot after this one.”

And what if the sequel surpasses the box-office feat of the first one and earns $300 million?

“Then we can probably come up with a good plot,” Janssen said, laughing heartily.

Taken 2 will be shown in theaters all over the Philippines on Thursday, Oct. 4.