'Red Two': Someone get Bruce Willis a coffee
Bruce Willis looks bored again in his latest sequel, "Red Two," which is minus Morgan Freeman, plus Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta Jones.
THE action-comedy "Red" was like "The Expendables" with brains, and so became a surprise hit two years ago, especially on DVD/demand.
So it's back, with Retired but Extremely Dangerous agents Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox - also Mary Louise Parker as the average citizen swept up in their intrigue, playing the adorable Midwestern love interest for international neck-snapper Willis.
What's not back is the fun meeting these characters, and what's especially not fun is seeing some of the actors going through the motions.
Especially Willis, who looks as bored and distracted as he did in his recent "Die Hard" sequel, so that effort to build a romcom around his relationship with his suddenly spy-crazy girlfriend falls flat. His scenes with Catherine Zeta Jones, a femme fatale rival, lack comic or romantic sizzle (I'd much rather see her kiss Rooney Mara again).
Most of the laughs are provided by the peripheral support - Malkovich's acid casualty spook is one of the funniest characters he's ever committed to the screen, and he still clearly loves playing him. Byung-hun Lee has some late-game laughs as an unstoppable hit man, the gang's new adversary.
The plot is a frayed thread on which to hang a few laughs - Anthony Hopkins is an institutionalized Cold War scientist who once planted a still-ticking bomb in Moscow. The over-the-hill gang races to find it, ahead of rogue U.S. agents (Neal McDonough, still not scary) and international terrorists.
The movie is good-natured and a painless sit, but its pleasures are modest, and seems even more suited to small-screen consumption than the original.