“Taken 2,” the movie whose very name is both absurd (“Hey, how come we keep getting taken?”) and indicative of how movie studios see moviegoers (thus the rejected title, “Taken Again”), earned $50 million at the box office this weekend. That's the biggest opening weekend since “The Dark Knight Rises” in July and the third-biggest opening weekend in October ever, behind only “Paranormal Activity 3” from 2011 and “Jackass 3D” from 2010.

Took.

It did all this despite a 19% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Among the comments:

• “An attempt to see how stupid and insulting a motion picture can be and still be a big hit.” — Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
• “So lazily put together that it relies on flashbacks from its predecessor for the majority of its character development.” --Dana Stevens, Slate

Then there's this prescient blurb:

• “It'll have a great opening weekend, but it still seems a shame to have diluted the action-flick purity of the first 'Taken' with this cash grab.” — Mike Russell, Oregonian

In other news, Tim Burton's “Frankenweenie” grossed only $11.5 million in more than 3,000 theaters and finished in fifth place: behind “Taken 2” and the second weekends of “Hotel Transylvania,” “Looper” and something called “Pitch Perfect.”

In silver-lining news, both “End of Watch” ($4 million) and “The Master” ($1.8 million) finished in the top 10.

The TCB numbers here.

It's “Taken 2”: Everybody close your eyes!