Film review: Red 2
For a film that wants to be a comedy, it is criminal to be unfunny; but unfunny criminals are even worse.
The follow-up to the genuinely hilarious 2010 film by Robert Schwentke brings most of the faces back together, but instead of going all-out absurd like its predecessor, Red 2 seems almost trepidatious to continue in the same vein of presenting us with the unconventional world of the RED (retired, extremely dangerous) professional killers.
The world mainly comprises seniors, some of them well off their rocker, but also the young and slightly silly Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), the girlfriend of Bruce Willis’ character, Frank Moses. The main characters from the first film return – at least, those who are still alive – and one would expect a line-up consisting of Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Brian Cox, who are joined here by Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, to be competent even when they are supposed to be rather ridiculous.
Such expectations were exceeded by the 2010 film, in which Schwentke went for broke with wall-to-wall action, every scene more over-the-top than the previous one, and yet it maintained our interest thanks to an interesting cast doing things we do not usually see them do (Willis excluded, of course).
To read the full review, visit The Prague Post.
(Still of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Mary-Louise Parker in Red 2. Photo by Jan Thijs – © 2013 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.)
