RED 2

Prequel to this movie: RED (2010)

For Retired Extremely Dangerous (RED) ex-spy Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), the good life is sitting at home enjoying the company of his girlfriend, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), relaxing on weekends, doing virtually nothing. That all changes when he learns that there are forces at work that are out to make him retire—permanently! These enemies will stop at nothing to make him pay for his past involvement in super secret agent stuff. He knows too much, has seen too much, and his enemies want him dead.

Wait a minute, wasn’t that the whole plot of the original “RED” movie?

Honestly, there you have it. A couple of years ago, Frank and his old pals Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) were all forced out of retirement by would-be assassins who wanted to cover up their tracks by killing anyone who was involved in a secret government mission. The last movie was cute—based on a comic book of the same name—the original had some, well, originality. The thought of these middle aged, seasoned former spies who were able to take names and kick butt was pretty exciting. The pace was quick, great comic-like special effects, and witty dialog. Sadly, because there is nothing really new in this sequel, all of the charm of the original is gone, leaving the audience with—haven’t we seen all this before? Pretty much the only change in the film is that now our fight has gone global, in that our heroes must save the entire former Soviet Union from obliteration.

Like the original, this film is full of killing and violence (nothing too gruesome, but still A LOT of killing and violence. There’s a bunch of unnecessary coarse language. Thankfully, the sexual content is kept to a minimum.

This film suffers from the Hollywood belief that if it makes good money, we have to have a sequel! Bigger special effects and bigger budgets do not always equate to better, more enjoyable movies. To that end, I am chalking this one into the “you should have left well enough alone” category. Save your money and rent the DVD of the original—even if you’ve seen it before—you’ll be happy you did.

Violence: Heavy / Profanity: Heavy—“My God” (4), “G*d-damn” (2), OMG, “Oh God,” “God,” “Good L*rd,” “Jesus,” “hell” (8), “damn” (3), s-words (6), “d*ck-head,” “*ss” (2), SOB (2), “cr*p”, f-word toward the end / Sex/Nudity: Moderate

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