Better Dead Than RED 2.

A bunch of stunts and car chases got together and called itself RED 2.

It convinced Bruce Willis and John Malkovich to reprise their roles as Frank Moses and Marvin, ex-CIA Retired-Extremely-Dangerous overactors, “indicating” their way through this spy comedy. Movie also convinced Helen Mirren to reprise her role as the most dangerous wetwork queen bitch, given a contract to kill Bruce and Malko, her best pals. Bryan Cox returns, lusting after Helen. And Mary Louise-Parker returns as Bruce’s delicate civilian love interest, so that I may lust after her.

There’s also a plot of a WMD about to be loosed on the world, so Frank and Marvin must find the eccentric professor who built it (for reason unknown). You lost me at why anyone cares about or listens to these old queens if they’re off the grid and about to be whacked. And who is the professor? Well, whenever a character in one of these ensemble movies is introduced by first seeing the back of his head, it’s always a case of speculating on which A-lister was conned into taking a cut in pay to be in this ensemble cast. Turns out the professor is Anthony Hopkins, conned into taking a cut in pay, so therefore, acting while giving only half a rat’s ass.

Forever pursuing Frank Moses – Neal McDonough as a CIA spook, who gives way too much of a rat’s ass. I mean, can you just leave these retired people alone for a second, CIA muttonhead? Maybe you’ll discern that killing them will accomplish nothing. And maybe you’ll keep all the bones in your hands and legs intact.

Catherine Zeta-Jones turns up, Russian spy, kisses Bruce in front of Louise-Parker. Now L-P jealous, but not enough to make it interesting. L-P, so hot and sensual, empathetic, caring, using the weapons she knows best in combat – breaking people by kissing them instead of shooting them. Now she make Bruce jealous. But not enough to make it interesting.

Apparently, it’s funny cos they’re old…

Who is responsible for this garbled mess? Director Dean Parisot (from the enjoyable GALAXY QUEST to the mediocre FUN WITH DICK AND JANE 2005); but more than the director’s fault – the editor, Don Zimmerman. It seems amazing that Zimmerman worked on those same two movies, as well as other A-List titles that never exhibited the haphazard piecemeal approach he effects with RED 2. Shots appear at random after the scene is over, reaction shots that go nowhere, mean nothing; further shots after the button has been pushed on a scene; a hodgepodge of meaningless angles after the point of the scene has been made, etc. After his body of good work, Zimmerman seems like he’s getting too old for this shit, as in apathetic. He could take a few lessons from the editor of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. Or maybe from a 7-year-old.

David Thewlis is a French spy called The Frog (and no one sees this as racist because…? American movie?); and Byung-hun Lee is the agency’s premier assassin who somehow can’t kill Frank Moses because – I don’t even care anymore.

One of the stupidest lines: Frank yells to Marvin during a gun battle, to take Frank’s girlfriend to safety, “Get her outa here!” To which Marvin asks, “When?” Frank’s yelled reply, “Now!” When someone says get her outa here during a gun battle, doesn’t it imply NOW? What did Marvin expect the answer to be: “In ten minutes”? Who wrote this redundant piece of idiot dialogue? Turns out, the same two guys who wrote the first movie. Now they’ve figured out how to phone in scripts.

Y’know, movies like RED 2 are the reason why Liam Neeson quietly usurped the Action Hero crown from Bruce Willis. It’s not so much that the movies themselves are bad, but that Willis is also bad in them, forcing his comedic shtick like amateur hour.

Eventually we just get sick of this many idiots firing automatic weapons and hitting this much nothing. Especially when their target – our heroes – are right in front of them and they don’t shoot AT them but fire warning shots into the air, and then AFTER the hero takes cover do they start shooting AT the hero’s location in earnest…. My head’s about to explode with how many times the bad guys have the drop on our heroes and DON’T shoot them.

Don’t make the same mistake with RED 2, Movie Maniac. When you see this movie – shoot to kill.

END

Red-Blooded American Funtime.

A shoot-em-up, rock-em sock-em age-fest.

RED is Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman; they’re ex-CIA, Retired Extremely Dangerous. You betcha – each of these operatives could wipe out whole cities: Willis with his arctic cool, Malko with his leering morbidity, Helen Mirren with her sexagenarian sexiness and Morgan Freeman with his pompous voiceover.

The four principals have more years between them than all the stars of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL combined. Ironically, watching HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL can kill you faster than any RED.

From a DC Comics graphic novel (by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner), RED follows Frank Moses (Willis) as he evades CIA operatives sent to kill him, led by Cooper (Karl Urban). It’s easy to evade bad guys in movies who still can’t aim after all those years of CIA training. Yes, it’s the yawn plot device of CIA trying to kill its own ex-operatives. Frank recruits his old team mates to get to the bottom of why. (Why? Because it’s the CIA, stupid! That’s what they do.)

Cooper culls Frank’s file from curmudgeonly CIA analyst, Ernest Borgnine (that guy’s still alive?!).

Poffy goes RED

Beautiful Mary-Louise Parker is Sarah, a cubicled government accountant who dwells romantically on her spy novels, merely a phone flirtation for Frank, until he inadvertently pulls her into the chase and she finds herself on the lam with an All-American Hero more virile than any Fabio-based cover model. Her wonderment, amusement and sensual excitement are pitch-perfect, with just that right dash of spinner cuteness. Positively glowing.Brian Cox is The Russian Guy. Was Rade Sherbedgia busy? In forbidden love with Helen Mirren. (Who isn’t in forbidden love with Helen Mirren?..)

Suddenly – Richard Dreyfuss! He’s a slimy weapons contractor (cough–Halliburton) who uses the CIA as his personal hit squad, under orders from the vice president — oh, so this is culled directly from the desk of the real-life Dick Cheney (Dreyfuss played that low swine in W.); here, the VP is Julian McMahon (appropriately, Dr. Doom from FANTASTIC FOUR, and the real-life son to a former Australian Prime Minister, William McMahon).

RED is solid action-comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet seriously commits to delivering cheeky China White straight-to-the-vein outlandish bombast. Just how drunk was the stunt coordinator who thought up the eye-popping gag of Willis stepping from a spinning car, guns aimed and blazing? And how uber cool (and sexually arousing) is Helen Mirren pumping an automatic machine gun or Bruce Willis in hand-to-hand combat beating up on some guy half his age?

Of course, the mindless action would be immaterial were it not punctuated by the personalities of the principals; Willis, Malkovich, Mirren and Freeman armed not only with guns that never run out of ammo, but a dry, deadly wit that only comes with the accumulation of years that these red-blooded wolves have spent howling at the moon.

END