REVIEW: RED 2

By Chris Luckett

3 stars out of 5

The worst James Bond movies feel like the sequence of the scenes could be jumbled around and, as long as the beginning and ending remained unaltered, the movie would function the same. RED 2 suffers a similar fate, with interchangeable action sequences and characters that seem to just be going through the motions required of them by the script. It’s the Quantum of Solace of Bruce Willis movies.

Image property of Summit Entertainment

RED (short for Retired and Extremely Dangerous, a label given to former super-spies like those played by Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich in the original) wasn’t the best movie of 2010 by any means, but it had a lot of fun with itself and offered the unique experience of seeing Oscar-winner Helen Mirren firing an assault rifle.

The first movie’s plot involved a conspiracy being pinned on retired CIA agents and a naïve, young hotshot (played by Karl Urban) hunting them down. It was just original enough to be entertaining and moved at a brisk enough pace that audiences didn’t have enough time to nitpick all the gaping plot holes and preposterous contrivances.

Image property of Summit Entertainment

RED 2, on the other hand, just seems to be on autopilot, a remix of sorts of the original RED. Once again, all the RED agents are being hunted down by a ruthless, young agent who hasn’t been told the whole story. (This time, he’s played by Minority Report’s Neal McDonough.) And once again, Willis and his crew repeatedly evade the younger, spryer agents, while determining who set them up and trying to prove their innocence. This time, though, the whole thing just feels stale and reheated.

In addition to the returning Willis, Mirren, Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, and Brian Cox, RED 2 also adds Catherina Zeta-Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Byung-hun Lee, and David Thewlis, all immensely enjoying themselves. Truth be told, the credit for the movie being is as much fun as it is belongs entirely to the cast, who clearly had as big a blast filming this one as they did the original. (For film buffs, there’s also a certain glee is getting to see the original two Hannibal Lecters, Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins, on-screen together.) Unfortunately, once that fun-by-proxy wears off, so does any life the movie has.

The other big problem is how lazily RED 2's script is populated by unnecessary plot twists. With so many different parties involved and so many varied motives behind them, the screenplay can’t help but juggle them, ignoring all but two at a time. After the sixth or seventh double-cross, it’s hard to bother caring about who’s on which side or why.

Image property of Summit Entertainment

The first RED was an enjoyable action-comedy that had charm and good humour to spare. It had just enough fun with itself and was just skilled enough at distraction that audiences could suspend their disbelief and enjoy the ride. RED 2, on the other hand, comes off as lazy, overly complicated, and less interested in entertaining audiences than in serving as a fun reunion party for the cast.

REVIEW: Despicable Me 2

By Chris Luckett

2½ stars out of 5

A charmingly hilarious animated movie came out in 2010 about a villain, voiced by a popular comedian, who learned how much more satisfying life is when you choose love over world domination.

That movie was Megamind.

Despicable Me was also good, but traded sharp comedy and classic timing for toothless action and overly cute children. (It was the Monsters, Inc. to Megamind’s Shrek, if you will.) Even so, it made over $250 million, so audiences are now treated to Despicable Me 2.

Image property of Universal Pictures

Steve Carell returns as the voice of Gru, as does Russell Brand as Gru’s assistant Dr. Nefario, and both do a great job again of twisting their voices while still remaining slightly recognizable. Kristen Wiig also returns, but now plays Lucy, an Anti-Villain League agent who seems predictably destined to become Gru’s love interest ten minutes into the movie.

The confusing yet forgettable plot revolves around a new villain who uses a giant magnet to steal an arctic research station, where scientists have been working on a chemical that turns the cute, yellow minions who stole the first movie into rabid, indestructible, purple minions with longer hair and slightly crazed eyes.

Image property of Universal Pictures

For reasons that never seem satisfactory, the government agency AVL decides Gru is the only person who can track down this new supervillain, which leads to the new father figure abandoning his adopted children for most of the movie to work in a mall shop with Lucy while they spy on villainous suspects. Meanwhile, all of Gru’s minions, also left alone and feeling as unnecessary as Scrat in the Ice Age sequels, begin to get abducted.

The plot threads of Gru and Lucy, Gru’s three daughters, and the abducted minions never feel like they have much to do with each other, even when the script awkwardly tries to collide them together. They’re entertaining enough in the moment – perfect for young children with short attention spans – but without a solid through line, it just feels like three unrelated TV cartoons haphazardly spliced together. 

Image property of Universal Pictures

All of those problems wouldn’t matter as much if the movie were at least funny, instead of resorting to low-aiming fat jokes, gay jokes, and fart jokes. (This may well be the first movie where the Chekhov’s gun of the plot shoots fart clouds.) Not until the last few minutes, when the minions perform a gibberish version of All-4-One’s “I Swear” and a slapstick montage during the credits, does Despicable Me 2 reach the same comedic heights of the first movie. By that point, though, it just feels like too little too late.