BEFORE: Helen Mirren carries over from "The Queen" - and this is the first of 6 or 7 "secret agent" films for January, unfortunately they won't be all lined up in a row, but what can I do? I'm at the point where I can either link by actors or go thematically, but I just can't do both.
THE PLOT: Retired C.I.A. agent Frank Moses reunites his unlikely team of elite operatives for a global quest to track down a missing portable nuclear device.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "RED" (Movie #1,148)
AFTER: This goes to support what I was saying the other day about franchises - in the case of action franchises, it seems like each film in a series needs to top the one before it, and the easiest way to do that is to keep adding characters. "Lethal Weapon" added Rene Russo, Jet Li and even Chris Rock as it went along, and there are so many characters in "The Expendables" now that I think some of them are starting to live up to that title.
"RED 2" attempts to top the interplay of "RED" by adding an old love interest/Russian spy, a doddering British spy who may not be as clueless as he seems, and an Asian martial-arts expert who's out for revenge against the main characters. Our heroes need to track down a WMD that got lost in Russia, so naturally they steal a plane and head straight to...Paris? OK, there's a reason for that, but once it's dealt with, it's straight on to London. But then, right after that, it's on to Russia, right?
Honestly, I couldn't keep track of all the flying around. By the time they got to the Iranian Embassy, I couldn't even tell you what country that embassy was in. Look, it doesn't really matter, because these are professionals who know exactly what they're doing, even if they don't always know where they're going. If you want to see some cool stunts, and watch some stuff blow up, and laugh at John Malkovich wearing silly costumes, then you've come to the right place.
And this is just a lot more FUN than those "Expendables" movies. Geez, Stallone takes himself so seriously in those films (or maybe he just can't move his facial muscles any more to smile, I'm not sure...) that all the fun gets sucked right out of them. If you want fun and wisecracks in your action film, you've got to get Bruce Willis. I felt more strongly that the people making this film enjoyed what they were doing - not that it's whimsical as such, but everyone seemed to be having a good time, even when getting shot at.
Who cares if people think that RED stands for "Really Elderly Dudes" instead of "Retired, Extremely Dangerous"? They can keep making these for as long as they want, as far as I'm concerned.
Also starring Bruce Willis (last seen in "The Expendables 2"), John Malkovich (last seen in "Warm Bodies"), Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "Thor: The Dark World"), Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in "The Terminal"), Mary-Louise Parker (last seen in "R.I.P.D."), Brian Cox (last seen in "Match Point"), Byung-Hun Lee, Neal McDonough, David Thewlis (last seen in "The New World"), Tim Pigott-Smith, Garrick "Biggs" Hagon (last seen in "Me and Orson Welles"), with a cameo from Titus Welliver (last seen in "Argo")
RATING: 6 out of 10 bottles of wine
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