RED 2- a movie review

Summary: I liked it. Though it seemed to wear a little thin on the jokes, and we got relationship advice from Marvin (that's just odd), it was still fun to watch.

Yeah, there are a couple spoilers. I'm not bothering to white them out. It just doesn't matter, really.

If you want a decent review of RED (2010) then go read the one at Dan the Man's Movie Reviews. I don't disagree with his review of RED, though I think I probably liked it a bit more than he did.

The original RED relied on the quirky introductions of the team, and that supplied a lot of the level of fun. This one tried to do that with a couple of the characters, most notably Katja and Bailey, but I think it failed in that. There is only a certain amount of eccentricity you can take with movie characters and I think we already reached our limit.

I certainly liked RED 2 more than Dan did (he rated it as 2.5/Crapola). I suspect that is because he is only twenty years old and in his prime, so a movie about a bunch of old butt-kickers is not very funny.

Trust me, when it is a little hard to get out of bed because of all the achy joints and creaking bones, a movie where a bunch of old folks are running around like young 007s is truly funny.

Of all the characters in the movie, Helen Mirren is the most believable, actually. She doesn't run around and try to act young. She simply sits back with her wonderful sniper rifle and shoots everyone. That's the job I want.

Unless I could have the job they gave Anthony Hopkins. Crazy man, evil genius. Yeah, that sounds fun. What is really sad about that is that it took him thirty-two years to engineer an escape from MI6 imprisonment. Genius? Hardly. A real genius wouldn't have been in that predicament to begin with and certainly could have escaped sooner. I can't blame him for wanting to blow up England in revenge though.

This movie is barely a plot, though they try pretty hard to put some twists in it. Near the beginning, our CIA agent Jack Horton (who?) well-played by Neal McDonough says to Frank Moses "Yeah, unarmed against - mumble, mumble, five six - seven armed men. Are you that good?"

Did you read the credits? Bruce Willis is the star, so of course he's that good.

I'm not sure why they brought in Catherine Zeta-Jones as Katja, though. She's pretty and we got a few jokes from her, so I guess that's okay.

For the same reason that I like Gemmell's Winter Warriors, I liked this movie. Was it worth seeing? I think so, and you'll have a good time. The hubris of the government agencies made me laugh a few times, though I'm not sure I was supposed to (and I'm really hoping that our governments are not that stupid, but I digress).

John Malkovich had some of the best lines in the film, although Lee Byung-hun had the very best of all, and you might only get it if you are old (or into movies).

Marvin Boggs says something like "If there's one thing I know it's covert ops and women." Frank Moses says "That's two things." Han Cho Bai says something like "No, that is one thing, grasshopper."

Great. Relationship advice from Marvin. They pulled that one a few times in the movie, to varying degrees of success.

I missed seeing Ernest Borgnine. According to IMDB, he was written into the plot, but he died in July, 2012. What a grand master actor he was!

Worth buying? Not a chance. I watched the original RED twice in a week (each of my youngest watched it independently, and I'm a doting father) and enjoyed it. I'll watch RED 2 when it comes on TV and I'm sure I'll like it then too.

I have to give it a six. Worth seeing at the theater, but not worth buying. Or you could wait for the rentals and you won't miss much. I'm begging Hollywood not to make a third one though.

What we're waiting for, of course, is The Wolverine next weekend. RED 2 was just a filler!