movies: red 2 (retired, extremely dangerous 2)

red 2 - the best never rest
In 2010 Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman came together for RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous).

Now, three years later Willis, Parker, Malkovich and Mirren return with some new friends in RED 2.

This is very much one of those sequels that pretty much dives right in without any kind of recap to the first movie, so I would definitely recommend seeing the original movie before seeing this one.

I also think that the sequel is somewhat less charming than the original... it does have it's moments, but I think it may have to do with the fact that Willis's character is less of a loveable rogue this time around.

However Parker, Malkovich and Mirren mostly make up for it. In fact, I'd go far as to say that I'd happily watch a spin off movie featuring Helen Mirren's character, Victoria, blowing things up and generally being a major bad-ass.

Joining the cast this time around are Anthony Hopkins who does a great job as a criminally insane professor, Byung-hun Lee as an old rival of Willis's and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a Russian agent and former flame of Willis.

I'm not a huge fan of Zeta-Jones, but thankfully her character isn't supposed to be particularly likeable.

A little like the first movie the sequel takes it's time to get where it's going, but the action sequences are quite well done. There are also some great moments of comedy, mostly coming from Parker and Mirren's characters.

yani's rating: 2 Kremlin comrades out of 5

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