FOUR years ago, an actioner written by Luc Besson and Robert Kamen ended with intelligence agent Bryan (Liam Neeson) at the burial of a bunch of middle-eastern hoodlums who tried to abduct his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) to sell her into prostitution.

Four years of real time later, it’s still that day and Bryan, Kim and Kim’s mother Lenore (Famke Janssen) have not yet left Istanbul. And Krasniqi (Rade Serbedzija), father of one of the dead hoodlums, seeks vengeance.

That’s the whole substance of this sequel, by the same writers and directed by the improbably-named Olivier Megaton. No matter that that substance has substance, violently executed, fast-paced, tense and energetic.

But the film is no more than a destructive chase along crowded, narrow Istanbul streets and through dank corridors of old, deserted buildings, interspersed with disquieting sequences especially involving Lenore enduring pain and other indignities after being captured.

Bryan is also a captive. Kim is the only member of the family still at large. And she’s diffident about carrying out daddy’s instructions without question.

Don’t you just hate it when a character wants to dissimulate about urgent action to stave off disaster? Yes, we all know that without that time-wasting contrivance, the action has credibility problems.

But credibility is ultimately not the main problem in “Taken 2”. Lack of plot diversification is.

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