RED 2

RED 2 (2013) brings the retired agents back into the field with a larger team than in the first film. Frank Moses is trying to live quietly; he shops in supermarkets and his partner Sarah is bored by it. Then a classified Cold War document leaks online: an operation called Nightshade and a nuclear device smuggled into Moscow. Frank's name is in it, and agents around the world are tasked with killing him. The tone is deliberately light. There is action but it is not taken seriously; the characters discuss lethal situations like a domestic argument. The best of it is the cast. Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Mary-Louise Parker continue; Anthony Hopkins plays a physicist held in an asylum for decades and has the most enjoyable work in it. Helen Mirren's character is a professional assassin and her scenes are the comic centre. Byung-hun Lee joins as a contract killer. The plot is thin and the structure, jumping from country to country, is scattered: Paris, London, Moscow. The first film's twist is repeated here, so the series is copying itself. It comes from Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner's comic, though the films are a long way from the source. It did less well than the first and no third was made. It runs 116 minutes. Good for: light action, large ensembles, and anyone who liked the first. Less good for: the story does not matter and the joke density smothers the action.