Red
RED (15)
D: Robert Schwentke
Summit/DMG/DC Entertainment (Lorenzo di Bonaventura &
Mark Vahradian)
US 2010
111 mins
Action/Comedy
W: Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber [based on the comic
book by Warren Ellis & Cully Hammer]
DP: Florian Ballhaus
Ed: Thom Noble
Mus: Christophe Beck
Bruce Willis (Frank Moses), Mary-Louise Parker (Sarah
Ross), Morgan Freeman (Joe Matheson), John Malkovich (Marvin Boggs), Helen Mirren (Victoria Winslow), Karl Urban (William Cooper), Brian Cox (Ivan Simonov)
So much fun. Even for those who didn't read the comic book
series which it's adapted from.
A perfect blend of action, thriller, comedy and John
Malkovich (who steals the entire movie).
R.E.D. stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous. An acronym
used for former CIA agents who find themselves subject to attempted assassinations of a government bureaucrat who needs to cover up some of their actions while they were in
service.
Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren are all
great fun, but it's John Malkovich's performance as a paranoid ex-assassin which gains the most laughs.
Sure, it's silly, but since it doesn't take itself too
seriously it's very easy to enjoy.
7/10
RED 2 (15)
D: Dean Parisot
Lions Gate/Summit/DC Entertainment (Lorenzo di
Bonaventura)
US 2013
116 mins
Action/Comedy
W: Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber [based on the comic
book by Warren Ellis & Cully Hammer]
DP: Enrique Chediak
Ed: Don Zimmerman
Mus: Alan Silvestri
Bruce Willis (Frank Moses), Mary-Louise Parker (Sarah
Ross), John Malkovich (Marvin Boggs), Helen Mirren (Victoria Winslow), Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Edward Bailey), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Maj. Gen. Katja Petrokovich), Byung-Hun Lee (Han
Cho Bai)
I really enjoyed the first movie, an OTT but
incredibly fun action-comedy about retired (& extremely dangerous) CIA agents who are targets for assassination due to the secrets they know. This sequel however is just
formulaic straight off the Hollywood production line hokum which possesses nothing which made the original film such fun to watch.
The story is practically the same, Frank Moses
(Willis) is an assassination target because of knowledge he possesses from his days in the field and he and his allies go on the run to solve why they're targets before they end up six
feet under.
The problem here is that the story is completely
uninteresting and all the cast members just look like they're in it for a paycheck and little else. John Malkovich stole the first movie as a paranoid retired agent but in this he just
plays a regular sidekick with nothing much about him. Mary Louise Parker was charmingly funny in the first movie as Willis' love interest, but in this she's irritating to the point that
you really don't care if she lives or dies. The worst cast member by far is Catherine Zeta-Jones as a Russian secret agent (seriously). I find Zeta-Jones absolutely abhorrent and
watching her trying to carve out a performance in this made me hope that I was also a target for assassination.
The only person who can hold their head up high in all
this mess is Helen Mirren, reprising her role as an ex-MI6 assassin.
A very unimpressive sequel and nothing more than a
cash-grab. Lazy filmmaking.
4/10
