RED 2

Directed by Dean Parisot, RED 2 follows Bruce Willis’ Frank Moses as he’s forced to reunite his oddball team of elite operatives, including John Malkovich’s Marvin Boggs and Helen Mirren’s Victoria Winslow, after a portable nuclear device goes missing. There’s little doubt, ultimately, that RED 2 fares best in its briskly-paced and thoroughly entertaining opening stretch, as filmmaker Parisot, armed with Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber’s screenplay, effectively replicates the easygoing, fun atmosphere of the original movie by emphasizing agreeably larger-than-life action set-pieces – including (and especially) a terrific sequence involving Frank’s jail-based encounter with a vicious assassin (Neal McDonough’s Jack Horton). (And it doesn’t hurt, either, that Parisot has elicited charming work from his various performers, with the only exception Mary-Louise Parker’s curiously grating turn as Willis’ energetic girlfriend.) It’s disappointing to note, then, that RED 2 slowly-but-surely begins to fizzle out as it enters its padded-out and hopelessly convoluted midsection, with the increasingly arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by a distressingly difficult-to-follow narrative that wreaks havoc on the picture’s forward momentum – which, when coupled with a decidedly less-than-enthralling third act and climax, cements the film’s place as a woefully lackluster sequel that rarely replicates the fun of its breezy predecessor.

** out of ****