Review by Dana Jung
In 2010, RED successfully mixed a mostly unknown director, a modest budget, and a cast of actors who were—how to put this delicately—all “of a certain age,” to become a surprise hit (over $200 million worldwide). Well, the entire RED ( “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”) gang of Frank, Sarah, Victoria, Ivan, and Marvin are back with more fun amid the action and blazing gun battles.
Beginning some time after the first film, Frank (Bruce Willis) is eagerly planning all the home improvement projects he can work on now that he’s safe with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). Let loose in a hardware store, Frank is like a kid in a candy shop; unfortunately, his enthusiasm is not shared by Sarah, who loves Frank but wistfully wishes for more of the thrilling man of adventure she met in the first film. Enter Marvin, with his usual paranoid fears of being watched and targeted, and the story is off and running. RED 2 is essentially a replay of the first film (at least for its first half), with our heroes narrowly escaping a garden variety of assassins. However, RED 2 ups the action with global locales (including London, Paris, and Moscow) and several nice action set pieces. New director Dean Parisot (GALAXY QUEST) keeps the excitement and humor of the first film intact, as the team reunites with Victoria (Helen Mirren) and Russian agent Ivan (Brian Cox) to basically save the world. And a few new faces turn up to add to the amusement: Catherine Zeta-Jones is a Russian spy and ex-flame of Frank’s, which leads to some of the movie’s funniest moments, as Sarah tries to cope with the situation. Korean action star Byung Hun Lee (most familiar to American audiences in the G.I. JOE films) adds a revenge subplot along with several innovative fight sequences that recall a young Jackie Chan. And Sir Anthony Hopkins is on hand as an imprisoned cold war weapons expert. The story moves along crisply, with car chases, unarmed combat, and automatic weapons fire aplenty. And how many films can boast sequences with breakins of both the Kremlin and CIA Headquarters at Langley?
Willis is fine as the man of few words but strong emotions, as Frank’s first impulse is to protect those he cares about. Mirren and Cox continue to have lovely chemistry and are responsible for perhaps the film’s biggest laugh as they playfully flirt during a stakeout. And while Mirren, who practically stole the first film, seems to have less screen time here (though she’s hilarious in the Kremlin scene), the good news is that Parker steps up and takes a more active role in the goings on, with her brand of intelligent but goofy charm. Sarah has definitely tired of being a suburbanite and wants to live the life of danger and romance that she found herself thrust into in the first film. Malkovich’s Marvin seems to have the most realistic assessment of Sarah’s personality, and while Malkovich’s performance seems at times to be little more than mugging for the camera, a young actor just starting out could do worse than study the expressions that cross Marvin’s face in this movie.
While the film as a whole is a worthy and entertaining followup, it does miss the heart of the first movie’s Morgan Freeman character, especially in continuing its themes of the necessity and even superiority of old ways vs. the new guard. Like the first film, RED 2 veers back and forth between comedy and sentimentality, but without the soul of a Freeman character at its center, the more serious scenes seem a bit out of place. For a while, it seemed that the Hopkins role might fill that void, however (for reasons explained in the film) this never materializes. Also, the relationship between Frank and Lee’s character is resolved too quickly and easily after the buildup it receives. And the movie is begging for a showdown between Frank and the lead assassin on their trail (played by Neal McDonough, channeling his JUSTIFIED mob enforcer here), but this ends as the punchline of a mean joke.
But, these small nitpicks aside, if you enjoyed the first RED, then you won’t be disappointed in this funny and crowd-pleasing sequel.
3 of 5 Stars
