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

Phallus Metallus.

Hmm, an IRON MAN movie without Iron Man…

Kiddies will fidget, parents will cringe, marketers will hit the roof, executives will cower, and fans of good storytelling will rejoice. Is IRON MAN 3 the best of the series? Maybe. Probably. If you could call this an Iron Man movie. All I know is, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) spends so much time outside his titanium-alloy armor, or in various incomplete stages of it, or in it with his faceplate off, that we wonder if we haven’t walked into a seminar on how to make a movie without its eponymous lead character. And sometimes, even when we’re seeing Iron Man, it’s not really Iron Man; it’s just the armor suit working remotely!

Which begs the questions: Exactly WHO is Iron Man? Is it the man or the metal? Or is it symbiotic? Intentionally or not, the filmmakers have pitted Tony Stark in a battle against his own suit over who owns the penis in the family. This question is answered in the movie’s final frames, and I’m going to tell you what it is – or at least, what the writers think it is. Then I’m going to tell you the REAL answer… But first…

If faithful comic fans can get past the weirdness of being fed so little Iron Man, IRON MAN 3 works on a storytelling level. Y’see, writer-director Shane Black and co-writer Drew Pearce are emphasizing the man within the machine, the humanity behind the supercool, planet-crushing timbre of the titanium; they’re saying the Iron Man armor is nothing without the man within. Whether he’s within or without.

Part Iron, Part Cucumber, All Hero

In IRON MAN 3, a nihilistic terrorist called The Mandarin (deliciously continental Ben Kingsley) rips everything from Tony Stark – his home, his technology, his armor, his girlfriend, even his supercomputer liege J.A.R.V.I.S. – and Stark must use his ingenuity (rather than his vaunted suit of steel) to claw back from the edge of oblivion and exact retribution.

Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) are leading the idyllic life of a non-communicating couple, Pepper running the billion dollar Stark Enterprises firm while Tony tools away in his Iron Lab with his disembodied pal and computer go-fer JARVIS (voice of Paul Bettany), whose sarcasm modulator, we presume, has been dialed up to 11. Tony’s bodyguard Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is now head of security at Stark Ent. (great to see him reprise his role, even though he is not directing). Stark’s colonel buddy James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), who assumed the War Machine armor for the U.S. military, has been renamed Iron Patriot and given a stars-and-stripes makeover (typical hypocritical U.S. re-branding snowjob).

The subplot, which jigsaws neatly into the Mandarin madness in ways which any canny moviegoer will see a mile away, involves a geneticist named Killian (Guy Pearce, who has been just waiting to pull out such a meatballs and cheese performance since PRISCILLA: QUEEN OF THE DESERT) who was scorned by Tony 15 years ago for not funding his DNA project, exacting revenge on Tony by coming on strong with successes in his field; re-petitioning for funding from Pepper, whom he would like to come on strong. Pepper gets the chance to prove she’s not just a pretty face by standing up and fighting for her man many times, and it is touching when Tony commands the suit to encase her instead of him to save her from falling debris. She then uses the suit not to cower in – like your average action movie chick – but to protect Tony. Tears edge the eyes… And the fact that Gwyneth’s over 40 and we can still see her ribcage when she’s cut down to a sports bra and tights helps vindicate that People Magazine Sexiest Woman Alive award. Not that I agree with the decision, but it helps.

Tony opens the movie by talking about how a man “creates his own demons.” It sounds like absolute amorphous hippie crap until we see exactly how Tony’s most benign actions create malign consequences. I’ve never thought of this before – probably because I’m as self-centered and arrogant as Tony Stark (like all of you, let’s not forget) – but any person whom you’ve stepped on offhandedly, or reviled or neglected out of hubris becomes one of your “demons.” The creation of the demon need not be as obvious as a plate-throwing argument, a national lawsuit or fistfight – your actions could be as seemingly innocuous as not calling someone back after an intimate encounter (lovely geneticist Rebecca Hall is Tony’s discarded squeeze here)… Another example of the movie depending on its storytelling finesse rather than its Pretty Orange Explosions.

Of which there are many, don’t sweat it, thirteen-year-olds. Director Shane Black, no stranger to action (he created the LETHAL WEAPON series, directed Downey in KISS KISS BANG BANG, and “the jungle came to life and took him” in PREDATOR) forges a respectful, riveting drama (based on the Extremis mini-series of Iron Man comics, 2005) that does not lack for suspense, romance, comedy and a wallop of jet-propulsive action – a fulfilling moviegoing experience. The thrilling scene where Iron Man saves a planeload of freefalling people is that clincher that makes you wish wish WISH that this technology existed and that YOU could be the one inside it.

How damn cool is that freakin’ suit?!

Tony’s Mk. 42 armor is most prominent in this movie, and fanboys will get a ferrous kick out of the final sequence where scores of Tony’s suits of differing designs turn up under remote command from JARVIS to punch bad guys. A phallic metallic paradise! Unlike IRON MAN 2, where a bunch of faceless armored suits chased Tony, these suits are all HIM. Not only are they damn cool to look at, it’s a thrilling sequence where he’s jumping in and out of them at whim, as they clack open and clack closed around his body in seconds.

But where did they come from? Didn’t his cliffside house (and Iron Lab) get blown into the sea at the end of Act I?

All I can say is: Lucky for Tony he had his Billionaire Credit Card in his back pocket when the Mandarin blew his house into the Pacific – which once again illustrates the juvenile thinking of supervillains and the writers who write them that way. These supposed evil geniuses can’t comprehend that you don’t destroy a man by blowing up his house and punching his metal suit – you destroy him by freezing his assets. The assets make the Iron Man. For whatever you say about “heart” or “courage” or “physics genius,” if you haven’t got the finances, all the heart, courage and physics genius in the world won’t design and build a multi-million dollar, weaponized, flying titanium-alloy suit. Can any one of us afford to replace the engine block in our car, let alone churn out 42 computer-interfaced Iron Man suits?

And by the way, the Mandarin supposedly only gets Tony’s home address when Tony blurts it out in a dare to the Mandarin on national TV. Shyeh royt!…. Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Tony thrown numerous irresponsible whore-parties at his house? You think not one of those strippers/hookers, waiters/actors and surfer boytoys who frequented those parties would not have leaked his address for a dimebag or an eight-ball or the promise of an acting career? You call yourself a supervillain and didn’t know where the world’s most prominent playboy billionaire lived until he told you?

At Tony’s lowest ebb, a little boy he befriends (Ty Simpkins) tells him, “You’re a mechanic – build something!” Firstly, he’s talking to Tony while Depressed Tony, who admittedly hasn’t got any suits left, is still sitting behind the wheel of a car that costs more than my house; secondly, Tony then visits a hardware store and plops whatever weapon-making tools he wants into his shopping cart. Thank Iron Christ for that Billionaire Credit Card, right?

So in answer to the question ” Who Is Iron Man?” at movie’s end, Stark – as he did at the end of the first movie – once again assures us of his identity, saying it loud and proud. He assures all the corporate dirt-piggies who will no doubt want to keep their cash cow alive; assures we the fans that even though he removed the shrapnel near his heart, negating the further need for his cool chest reactor, that even though all his gadgets are destroyed, that even with his new mature outlook on life, avoiding danger for his girlfriend’s patticake, that even though he just rid himself of everything associated with that golden avenger, Tony assures the audience and Marvel Studios alike, “I am Iron Man!”

Well, his credit card is.

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