Starring: Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich
On just a normal day put shopping, retired agent Frank Moses (Willis) and his girlfriend Sarah Moss (Parker) are contacted by their reclusive and eccentric assassin friend, Marvin (Malkovich) who informs them that a document implicating Moses in a fictional operation known as Nightshade years ago connected with a genuine portable nuclear bomb. As a result, Frank, Sarah and Marvin have to track down the bomb's imprisoned inventor, Doctor Edward Bailey (Anthony Hopkins) with their friend, MI6 agent Victoria Winslow (Helen Mirren) sent to track them down, aided by Korean hitman, Han Cho-Bai (Byung-hun Lee).
The sequel to 2010's action movie, RED (an acronym for Retired and Extremely Dangerous), RED 2 has a lot of the ingredients for a satisfyingly raucous explosions and car-chases romp even with its maturing cast. Still, it never truly comes together. A large part of this problem is how much time is given to set up the plot, despite it not being particularly complex. By the time the action starts, you already feel worn down be the sheer exposition and dialogue on display. That isn't to say the action set-pieces are disappointing. Byung-yun Lee provides some particularly dynamic fight sequences, even if he's noticeably a lot younger than his co-stars and the noise and chaos does mean that by the end of the film, you still feel like you've seen an action film, but it takes far too long to start. There's also a problem with complacency with some of the actors clearly coasting through and never truly being dynamic, although Anthony Hopkins still makes for an enjoyable performance and sadly not enough is seen of David Thewlis in a minor supporting role. The lone exception is Mary-Louise Parker as the civillian-turned-action.-hero who puts in a noticeably more charismatic and enthusiastic performance.
Noticeably different on an aesthetic level to the first RED film, RED 2 still feels like a retread of old territory even with the new additions of Thewlis, Lee and Catherine Zeta-Jones as an old flame of Bruce Willis's and the towering Neal McDonough as a pretty unmemorable villain. There's a feeling that the entire film could be a lot more of a zany caper and would probably benefit from it. As it is, it's pretty straight-forward but fairly entertaining action fare.
Next time, 50s-set drama about a group of female radical feminists, Raven Adamson appears in Foxfire.
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