Preposterous 'Taken 2' dumbest action movie of year so far

Knock! Knock!

Who's there?

"Taken 2."

"Taken 2" who?

I saw the new Liam Neeson movie and boy, I got Taken 2!

This is the dumbest action movie I've seen this year.

It makes no sense. It doesn't even try to fake realism.

It contains some of the silliest dialogue this side of a Michael Bay movie. And it depicts Albanians as the stupidest villains ever to be featured in a motion picture.

Take those wacky Albanian thugs watching a televised soccer match so intensely that Neeson's character, former U.S. secret operative Bryan Mills, shoots their buddies in the next room and they don't even hear the shots.

Or that crazy Albanian assassin who, instead of shooting Mills as he walks by the door, sticks his gun way out into the hallway first so Mills can grab it and beat the Albanian snot out of him.

My favorite Albanian stupid bad guy comes along near the end. He and Miller both pull guns out at the same time and shove the barrels into each other's face. Guess what?

The Albanian doesn't fire his gun.

Nope. He's apparently so mesmerized by Mills' dyed hair, or his Irish vocal stylings, or his sheer panache at imitating Jason Bourne's strobe-light movements that he forgets to pull the trigger.

So Mills breaks his neck.

"Taken 2" begins where "Taken" left off after Mills went to Europe to rescue his kidnapped daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) from white slavers and sex traffickers.

Or, as Mills' ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) reminds us, "You found her in a city of 12 million people in 72 hours!"

And the Albanians want to mess with this guy? Really?

You're already feeling sorry for the Albanians before they even launch their mission to track down the guy who gleefully wiped out all their relatives in the first movie.

"We will find him!" says Murad (Rade Sherbedgia), the leader of the Albanians. "We will bring him here! We will have our revenge!"

Murad and his minions kidnap Mills and Lenore in Istanbul. They drive the American couple to a remote location where they handcuff Mills next to a steel rail he can use to saw through his shackles. They cut Lenore's throat just enough to slowly fill a bag over her head so she will drown in her own blood.

Good thing the stupid Albanians didn't notice the tiny cellphone Mills carries in his pants. He calls up Kim and tells her to run around Istanbul, throwing hand grenades all over the place. (Apparently, Istanbul cops don't respond to multiple grenade explosions.)

By counting how many seconds it takes to hear the grenades explode, Mills triangulates his location on a map and has Kim drop off a gun to him at his exact location.

Easy schmeezy.

See? Those poor Albanians never had a chance.

"Taken 2" comes from director Oliver Megaton, who has delivered the mega-ton nuclear bombs "Colombiana" and "Transporter 3."

Here, Megaton attempts to out-Bourne Jason's movies with a furious editing style and disorienting camera shots during car chases and fight sequences.

In the first "Taken," Neeson could use his considerable presence and acting skills to sell the story's absurdity. Here, the idiocy gets the best of him, rendering the actor into a mobile prop that Megaton merrily pushes through one scene after another until the ridiculous final scene.

Mills, Lenore (who not only didn't drown in her own blood, there's not a drop of it on her head when she's rescued) and Kim have lunch. Kim's new boyfriend appears at their table.

"Dad, don't shoot this one!" Kim says. "I really like him!"

The boyfriend's probably safe.

Unless he's Albanian.