ACTION COMEDY; 1hr 55min
STARRING: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirren, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Anthony Hopkins
Red alert: Mirren
Like the leopard, a black-ops retiree never changes his spots, so even though Frank Moses (Willis) is living the suburban good life with his daffy sweetie, Sarah (Parker), in the “Retired Extremely Dangerous” sequel to 2010’s RED, he is still as deadly as a detonating grenade. And not destined to fade away while mowing his lawn: when MI6 mistakenly believes that Frank and his interfering buddy, Marvin (Malkovich), know the location of a Cold War WMD codenamed Nightshade, as in deadly, the hunt is on, with Frank, Marvin and Sarah leapfrogging — or in the lads’ case, creakfrogging — through Paris, London and Moscow in search of the unhinged genius (Hopkins) who created and hid the damned thing. Meanwhile, two hired killers are chasing Frank and Marvin, one of them being temptress crack-shot Victoria (Mirren).
Twists ensue, with Zeta-Jones lighting fires as Katja, “Frank Moses’ Kryptonite”, but they’re nothing these wily pros can’t handle. The only way that director Dean Parisot’s Code RED tomfoolery can fly is if everyone plays it dead straight, which they’re all plainly happy to do. Watching them wriggle never gets old.
