Konterr Brilliant and touching

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

HotToastyRag You don't have to see RED first, but it is awfully cute. The title stands for Retired and Extremely Dangerous, so as you might expect from watching the preview and seeing the cast list, this is one of those "old guys still got it" movies. In general, I love these movies, and with RED and RED 2 I was just as entertained as I'd expected to be. Ironically, the youngest man in the bunch, Bruce Willis, is the lead. I never think of him as being of retirement age, but here he stands among older old-timers: John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and Anthony Hopkins.As you know from the first movie, the gang is a bunch of retired CIA agents who are fighting to stay alive, because they know some pretty dangerous state secrets. Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker are still completely adorable together in the film, and when his ex-flame Catherine Zeta-Jones shows up, Mary-Louise gets pretty jealous! Joining the cast for the sequel are Neal McDonough and Byung-hun Lee, so ladies, you'll get plenty of eye candy in this one!RED 2 is just as funny, delightful, romantic, and exciting as the first movie. It's chalk-full of hilarious one-liners and thrilling action scenes, so buckle up and get ready for a very fun movie night!

NateWatchesCoolMovies More of the same, baby. That's a good thing in this case as we rejoin ex assassin Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and his merry band of morons for another set of high caliber swashbuckling, this one even sillier than their first picnic. The key is in the deadpan humour, which is served up with all the relish needed to make something so fluffy work. Most of the eclectic cast is back for second helpings, and the ones who caught bullets are replaced by even more bankable names and familiar faces here. Moses, his girlfriend (Mary Louise Parker, finally acquiring her sea legs when it comes to warming up to the carnage) and loony old friend Marvin (John Malkovich) find themselves thrown headlong into an arms race to find a deadly super weapon before it's either detonated or acquired by very dangerous people. Leading them along is a frazzled ex MI6 spook and mathematical genius (Anthony Hopkins in silly mode) who has seriously lost his marbles. On their tail is scary CIA psychopath Jack Horton (Neal McDonough nails yet another heinous villain role) who brandishes his silenced pistol with the same verve he uses to flash that icy grin, the last thing you see before the shooting starts. Helen Mirren returns, as does her beau, played again by Brian Cox and his teddy bear worthy Russian accent. Other newcomers include Korean superstar Byung-Hun Lee as an agile and ticked off assassin out to get Moses, Catherine Zeta Jones as a foxy Russian femme fatale and Professor Lupin himself David Thewlis as a snooty arms dealer called The Frog, but not for te reasons you might think. When actors of such skill and notoriety show up in these, it really makes everything else worth it, even if the plot is somewhat up in the clouds, and the mad dash, rat race tone can get a bit too loopy. These pros always keep it grounded when they need to, both with shooting and acting prowess. This one can't quite keep up with how much fun it's predecessor was, but it's certainly more than adequate, especially to see Hopkins, a man of trademark gravitas, give an out of left field (and his mind, really) turn worthy of Jim Carrey and not without a few disarming third act surprises.

willcundallreview Red 2 at first caught me off guard a little; there I was thinking that it wasn't so bad at the beginning and that maybe people dislike this a bit too much, I was wrong. The second movie in the series is one of high octane action of which some could say the quota is pushed up in this one but it fails to make much a decent original plot and wastes the possible decent action-comedy this could have been. I must say for the record that I pretty much didn't like the first film, it was mediocre stuff really and the same for me applies here although this is generally much poorer than the first movie. Yet again starring Bruce Willis as Frank Moses, this time we see the gang of retirees and friends chase down a missing nuclear device of which such a thing could wipe out millions of people. That synopsis I just gave is the whole reason this is disappointing to me, it goes for the most over the top and yet most over used storyline ever.This time the movie throws in Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta- Jones (yes they seem to have been casting in Wales) and both are really kind of not used well but at the same time do at least bring personality. It's not that either does not bring skill to the cast, particularly Hopkins as Dr Bailey who does actually play the role very nicely but both are used to create incredibly basic characters and I wish this plot and its characters could have been more new and fresh. In comes a few people we saw from the first film and they do help the plot a little but overall nothing can be done to stop this being pretty dumb really, even the decent action is edited in an awful way which for me is one of the biggest mistakes of this movie.Dean Parisot was not the right choice for this movie as director; from a film perspective he has made comedies before but his work is not a good effort for this. See getting a director for this kind of movie you would think the reasonable choice would be someone with a good background in comedy and action or possibly both but you get neither here, by no means does Parisot ruin this, but he doesn't do a great deal right. The two Hoeber's who wrote the first film write again and yet again it feels like a script that could look good on paper but comes out poorly on the screen, yet again like with Parisot they don't destroy the film, just make it below-par stuff.Listen I'm not going to tell you to completely not watch this, with the first instalment I felt it was a film that a lot of people could enjoy but with this although I felt it wasn't as good, it still is far from terrible. I have to admit parts of this are not all bad and some bits if you take away what's going on in the story can be exciting, overall though just not a solid enough effort. Oh yes and one other thing that really for me didn't work was not only the bad guys in this, but also the way in which this movie seems to play serious a second after being silly, it just means that when an actual decent bit of serious acting comes in, a very basic joke either precedes or succeeds it and it just doesn't feel right. All in all a comedy-action that never quite even reaches the average heights of it's predecessor, try as it may it still just feels stupid and the cast is wasted on yet another pointless adventure.

classicsoncall The first thing I was looking for here was to see if they found a way to bring Morgan Freeman back to life from the first film. Instead, John Malkovich is killed off and resurrected, then teamed up with Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirren and a new cast of characters to bring adventure, romance and danger to this unpredictable assassins flick. I have to admit, I get a kick out of this kind of mindless fun when the writing is creative and the dialog complements the action with wit, sarcasm and self deprecating humor. The set up is perfect with Marvin Boggs (Malkovich) enticing Frank Moses (Willis) back into the espionage game by reminding him that he hasn't killed anybody in months. From there, it's pretty much non-stop nonsense in the way of chases, explosions and martial mayhem until the hero team saves the world from Red Mercury and restores the world's balance of power back to normal. I wouldn't normally rate an action flick this high, but RED 2 distinguishes itself for it's sheer audacity in attempting to make the unbelievably absurd look like just another day.