(USA, 116 min.)
Dir. Dean Parisot, Writ. Jon Hoeber & Eric Hoeber
Starring: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker,
Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung-Hun Lee.
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| Helen Mirren stars in Red 2 Courtesy of eOne Films |
Growing old is a dangerous game. Hips break and knees crack.
The expiry dates on coupons tick down like the timer on a bomb. Early bird
dinners pose a race against time. If the old lady in the walker hobbles too
slowly, take her out. There’s no need to get soft in old age: put a cap in
granny’s ass and be done with it.
Red 2, a spirited follow-up to the sleeper hit of 2010, returns to the days of retirement for a group of golden oldies not yet ready to join the dinner rush at Denny’s. Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), for example, is a reluctant retiree. His days in the CIA left him labelled RED for “Retired: Extremely Dangerous,” so the golden years are a period of laying low and staying alive. Frank comes out of hiding when he makes a rendezvous with his old pal Marvin (John Malkovich) in the aisles of the most banal and American of places, Costco. Red 2, like the servings at Costco, provides thrills that are bigger and better than the average wholesale flick: it might not exceed the first Red, but Red 2 is just as fun as the original was, and it ups the ante with a bigger cast, bigger car chases, and bigger guns.
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| Courtesy of eOne Films / Photo by L Jan Thijs |
Marvin’s appearance sends Frank back into action. Word is
there’s a hit on Frank and his old ally, Victoria Woods (played by Helen
Mirren), has been contracted by MI6 to do the job. The Americans, meanwhile,
have hired Korean assassin Han (Byung-Hun Lee) as well. Frank embarks on a globetrotting
spy game to ferret out the culprit behind a sensitive post on WikiLeaks that
has stirred up all this anti-Frank animosity. Frank is aided by an odd and
unlikely group of allies including his girlfriend, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker),
and former flame/KGB Kryptonite, Miranda (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
The retirees set guns a-fire all around the world as Red 2 provides solid action-comedy
escapism. The stakes have never been higher for some of Hollywood’s greatest
action stars and this tongue-in-cheek adventure proves that no actor is too old
for any role and that no part is too odd a fit for an actor. Willis, for one,
is lots of fun as Frank, the RED retiree most in jeopardy of becoming a
crotchety old man. Willis still holds an action pic just as well as he did in
the Eighties, but it’s far more entertaining to see him in action in a role
that plays to his age. Even if Red 2
doesn’t surpass the original film, it’s far better than the two most recent Die Hard films combined.
While Willis performs more than comfortably as the aging
action-hero, Red 2 might best be
enjoyed by viewers who are trying new things in life. Dame Helen Mirren, for example,
is a true novelty behind the trigger. The sight of the refined Academy Award
winner packing heat and pumping lead will never grow old. One might want to
send Mirren a copy of Breaking Bad as
research for Red 3, however, since
the audience’s introduction to Victoria sees Mirren disposing of a body using acid
in a bathtub. (She does so in an evening gown and gloves, so she makes
disposing of a corpse look much classier than Jesse Pinkman does.) The film’s
final action sequence plays greatly to Mirren’s deadpan take on the stunt
casting.
Willis and Mirren might have old-timers cheering during
matinees, but every other scene of Red 2
is stolen by returning players John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker. The two
actors are the comedic relief to the straight men of Willis and Mirren, with
Malkovich being especially zany as the flamboyant, eccentric, and trigger-happy
Marvin. Parker looks to be having the most fun, as she did in the first Red film, being just the right bit
off-the-wall as Sarah becomes attracted to her hubby’s exciting past. There’s
also some amusing cat-fighting between Parker and newcomer Catherine
Zeta-Jones, who is plenty fun as the film’s sultry femme fatale. The tension
between Sarah and Miranda is especially meme-friendly.
Red 2 enjoys two
other newcomers, Byung-Hun Lee and Anthony Hopkins. Lee, star of Korean hits
like I Saw the Devil, offers an
impressive find. Red 2 introduces a
new action star to square off against the like of Willis, and lets him display
his impressive physique and screen presence while holding his own against the
veterans. Hopkins plays an aloof British research named Bailey who is locked in
a psychiatric ward and is the gatekeeper for the information Frank seeks in
relation to the WikiLeaks brouhaha. Bailey lets Hopkins chew the scenery with a
healthy appetite.
Viewers need not have seen the first Red to enjoy Red 2, as
the new characters take the film in a direction (slightly) different from the
last. Red 2 starts with a jolt and
moves at a pace that far exceeds typical geriatric running speeds. The old pros
haven’t missed a beat. Red 2 provides
an enjoyable rebuttal to the adage of old dog/new tricks, as it gives the
summer one of its most entertaining escapes.
There’s hardly a passing reference to its predecessor,
although this stylish production makes ample nods to the film’s graphic novel
origins using some flashy scene transitions to bridge the scenes of comic book
violence. It might be more of the
same as it puts familiar faces in slightly new territory and shoot up a storm
in another NRA-friendly flick, but this Red
proves that retreads can be extremely delightful. As one studio tent-pole
after another caters to the young and thuds both critically and commercially, Red 2 reminds us that sometimes the old
pros are best left to deal with the heavy artillery. Lock 'n load, Helen
Mirren, you’re the action star of the summer!
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Red 2 opens in theatres July 19th.
