Retired black-ops CIA agent Frank Moses is in for another ride as he and his team of elite operatives are on the mission to locate a missing portable nuclear device built during the Cold War. Along the way, they cross paths with terrorists, assassins, and government officials who are all itching to get their hands on the weapon that will turn the tides of hegemony. If this isn't bad enough, Frank must also deal with his relationship with Sarah which seems to be in trouble as well.
This movie is a whole lot different from the first one, and that's not a compliment. What bothers me the most in this sequel is that it has more comedy than action. What's worse is the fact that it's barely even funny at all. The action scenes fail to deliver as well. This was a comedy film with action when it should have been the other way around. What this film missed that its predecessor had was the balance. Red was able to balance the action and comedy quite well. It entertains you and gives you the great action you deserve unlike the sequel we have here. Watching the film felt like a giant goose chase around the world. It bothers me how I was so detached to the film despite the fantastic, yet overused, locations they have for the movie. Paris, London, and Moscow: these are gorgeous places yet watching the film feels like I can easily see them across the street. The film is fond of travelling from one place to another without giving much importance to the current place they stay on. In one scene you are in Paris and the next you are in London. It doesn't give you the time to appreciate and understand what's going on. By the time the places shift again, your brain would still be in the previous location trying to piece together what happened.
The ensemble cast doesn't help either. For some reason, the film probably thinks that the more characters they put, the better it will be. Well it definitely thought wrong. The fact that they added more characters was a risk in the field of characterization. That many characters require a great need of character development or depth or else they will come off as flat and shallow. However, I am more lenient with character development in action films compared to other genres. What I usually look for in action films is how smart the characters are, the decisions they make and their relevance in the film that can contribute to the development of the film. What irks me the most in this film is how bipolar its characters are. At one point, they are allies and then in a not-so-surprising turn of events, that ally turns out to be a villain. Some go the other way around. This is a cliche in the genre of action films, wherein an ally turns out to be the villain or vice versa. Red 2 makes use of this cliche and to be perfectly honest, it's fine with me. But what's not fine is how they used the same concept over and over again until it got so old that you would just have to wait for the next twist. If you can still call it a twist that is.
Bruce Willis was less badass in this film. I expected so much more from this man. This does not seem to be his year since A Good Day to Die Hard and G.I. Joe: Retaliation were both failures. It's probably the other cast members that are stealing his spotlight especially Helen Mirren. Helen Mirren is one hell of a woman in this film, just like in Red. She was able to pull off her character quite well and was able to give a performance worth praising despite being stuck in an upsetting movie. The other woman in the film is Catherine Zeta-Jones who was okay. Not that good and not that bad either. Her character was bad though, but that's another aspect. In terms of acting, she did what she could do to save her character's uninteresting life. Byung-hun Lee had so much potential in this movie. I love his character except for the third part where it all went downhill. Not his fault though, once again, all the blame is on the script. Last actor I'll mention is Anthony Hopkins. He is one of the reasons why I really wanted to watch the movie. It's Anthony Hopkins for heaven's sake. Watching Anthony Hopkins was entertaining but with a little bit of annoyance from time to time but still tolerable. I like how flexible his character is and how he plays it. Anthony Hopkins is able to put on a good show despite being in a movie that no one may want to see twice.
In terms of the technical aspects, I noticed how the film had some trouble in terms of its continuity. I usually don't mind them as long as it only happens once but I noticed more than couple of them throughout the film. Other than that, the rest were all good.
Overall, Red 2 was a good try but a miss. If you're looking for some good old action-comedy film, then you have nothing to see here. If you're looking for a good action film, still nothing to see here. A comedy film? Not even close. But if you just wanna kill and waste time, then you might want to consider this.
Rating: 1.5/5
