Movie Review: Red 2

Red 2 (2013)

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.  Short synopsis of Red 2 taken from IMDb.com

Hmmm...  I didn't think they could keep up with the first one, but somehow they managed it.  Red 2 was a bit hyper-violent for its rating in places (disturbed my wife), but overall, the humor and the non-stop thrills never left me feeling like "oh please."

Only real kick for me was the red mercury weapon and the scientist bad guy (played by Anthony Hopkins) were too cliche for words, but it wasn't a game-killer.  And Mary-Louise Parker, in the female lead role, really sold it this time around.  Oh, I do have to say that, despite the fact that she seemed to be playing it up, I felt like Catherine Zeta Jones was just phoning it in here.  But maybe it was just the weak nature of the character she played coming through.

Remember the days when all you had to do in a movie car chase was be a better driver?  Today, if you are the passenger, you gotta shoot pistols out of both windows and actually hit something worth the effort (that's the tough part - I can shoot pistols out of both windows of a moving car, but I'd probably be hitting street signs and walls and the maybe the bad guy's bumper, if I'm lucky).  And if you are the driver, you better have earplugs in place, otherwise that gun going off next to your head is going to leave you saying "WHAAT?" when your sharpshooter passenger is done pinging away. 

Oh, I was annoyed that they tried to pass off a An-12 Cub as a C-130.  But they did that in World War Z too.  Probably the very same plane, for all I know.  What, we can't get an old C-130 from somewhere to be in a film?  They could do it in the 80's and 90's, but now we expect people to be dumb and overlook a Ukrainian-built transport aircraft filling in as a U.S. workhorse of the same basic design?  Nope.

Anyway, the humor for Red 2 was top notch, and everybody seemed to really play well with each other.  Except Catherine Zeta Jones, as noted.  And also, the villain was kinda forgettable.  Karl Urban was better in the first one.  The guy in this film was good as a ruthless type, but just seemed... well more forgettable, like I said.  But then how do you stack up against such an all-star cast who played our heroes?  Though I'm sure that the villains in The Expendables had the same trouble.  If I cared to watch that mess of throw-back hokum again, that is.

Final word: Red 2 was worth the price of admission, but probably would have been better as a cheap seats or even a Redbox DVD rental.

The parting comment:

Source: LOLSnaps.com

I have nothing to follow that up with except maybe "well said."