Red 2

A good if not great success released back in 2010, Red was a good if not great summer-type blockbuster that earned almost $200 million worldwide. I liked it, a movie that was familiar but also really fun and action-packed. I can say I was pretty surprised to hear it was getting a sequel, but with all the duds out there, I wanted to give it a try, even if it was an unnecessary sequel. Here we go with 2013's Red 2.

Having survived the shady branches of the government trying to burn him (i.e. kill him), former C.I.A. operative Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) has moved onto a quieter life, moving in with his girlfriend and former customer service operator, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). Well, it was a quieter life. Friend, fellow former agent and all-around kook Marvin Boggins (John Malkovich) has tracked Frank down and is seeking his help. Dating back to a mission they accomplished in the early 1980s, an internet leak (hello, WikiLeak!) links them to placing a nuclear bomb somewhere in Moscow. There's a catch. Supposedly, it's still there, and a rogue government agency that's "interested in national security" wants to not only find the bomb, but kill Frank, Marvin and anyone with any knowledge of the bomb. Bringing Sarah along to protect her -- even though she's excited to come along -- Frank and Marvin (and some other friends along the way) hit the road looking to save millions and exonerate themselves.

Above all else, this sequel and its predecessor are what movies supposed to be. They're not great, they don't rewrite the genre, and at times, they're too schizophrenic for its own good. What are they then? They're a whole lot of fun, whole lot of action and a whole lot of talent assembled in the cast. Director Dean Parisot follows the same formula as the original, giving his retired agents (RED stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous) an impossible mission to accomplish and letting them do so in multiple exotic locations around the world. Originally based on a graphic novel, some scene transitions reflect its background, the characters and action turning to animation with a quick blur to the next location. Even though it's a little long at 116 minutes, things never slow down long enough for it to actually be boring.

The biggest reason for the success here is that the cast is clearly having a lot of fun. That doesn't always translate, but in here it is definitely a positive. We're talking a talented cast here, Willis, Louise-Parker, Malkovich and Helen Mirren all returning from the first movie. There is an easy-going, friendly charm that brings the movie past its familiar, action-packed roots, another layer to appreciate. Willis as the very capable Moses is his usual action hero, but with a spin, a quasi-nerdy homebody who is the polar opposite of what you'd think a cold-blooded C.I.A. agent would be. Malkovich and Mirren are the best parts of the movie, legitimizing the movie just by being there, but also committing to their parts and having some fun. Malkovich's possibly unhinged Marvin is a scene-stealer, always ranting about conspiracies and plots for evil....except he's usually right. Mirren too is perfectly cast as Victoria, a very ladylike older woman who's also capable of pulling out the big guns to get the job done, doing her job and doing it well. It's a great, fun trio to lead the way.

What I noticed with this sequel is its got some touches of Sylverster Stallone's Expendables movies. You have your core cast, but then you fill out the rest of the parts with as much talent as humanly possible, and in this case with a lot of fun parts. Also returning briefly from the first Red is Brian Cox as Ivan, a former and now current love of Mirren's Victoria, with newcomers Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Thewlis and Neal McDonough all joining the story. I don't want to give too much away about the characters, each of them holding some good twists as the story develops. My favorite supporting part went to alum of the G.I. Joe series Byung-hun Lee, playing the Han Cho Bai, the world's best hired killer, this time hired to take out Moses and crew. It's a really entertaining part that is both dark and fun, his past history with Frank Moses and the ever-evolving killer/victim relationship developing with some fun jokes.

If there's a weakness in the cast, it's Mary-Louise Parker as Sarah, Frank's thrill-seeking girlfriend. She loves Frank, but she's also bored to tears with their new quiet home life. I saw a lot of movies this year, and I don't know if there was a more annoying movie character out there. The script really tries to involve her in the action, her oddball personality blending "well" with the group, but it tries too hard. She's supposed to be cute and quirky and adorable, but any dialogue involving her relationship (and its problems) with Frank can be painful to watch. It provides some good moments as Malkovich and Mirren offer solutions, but it's just window dressing on some painful moments.

The action is another thing here that surprises me. Red 2 is pretty violent, but because it's PG-13, it isn't as effective as it could be. I'm not always a proponent of graphic violence for the sake of the violence, but the on-screen killings, gunfire and explosions are pretty hardcore at times, making me question if a harsher, blood-splattered version wouldn't be a tad bit better. The action manages to blend that schizo, over the top stylish action with the harder, grittier shootouts, never going too long between sequences. It does give the cast some funny moments during these hellacious firefights, Frank at one point asking Marvin "Is that dynamite in your pocket?" to which Marvin answers "Yeah, I was saving it for an emergency." It's that type of goofiness that plays well in this action comedy.

Long story short....if you liked the original, you'll enjoy this follow-up. Not a classic, but very watchable and a good popcorn movie.

Red 2 (2013): ***/****

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

While it made over $300 million back in 2009, I can think of exactly one person I know who saw and liked G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. Okay, one person other than me. It was mindless, stupid fun with a cool cast. Well, the makers didn't exactly strike while the iron was hot, but it didn't seem to matter. With little of the same cast returning, 2013's G.I. Joe: Retaliation was an immense box office success. Is it any good?

Having led a successful mission to recover stolen nuclear devices in Pakistan, a G.I. Joe force is prepping for evacuation when an air strike wipes out much of the force. What happened? Who ordered the attack? Only three G.I. Joes survive the air strike, including Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Cotrona), and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki). They manage to escape in the aftermath, vowing revenge. All evidence points to Cobra Commander being up to something, but no one knows that he's replaced the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce) with one of his right-hand men, Zartan (Arnold Vosloo). The evil Commander is just waiting for the right opportunity to unleash his plan. The surviving Joes are back in America by now. Can they figure out what's going on before they're eliminated too?

As mentioned, this sequel from director Jon M. Chu is a not so timely follow-up to the 2009 original. It earned over $370 million in theaters so it obviously landed well with audiences, a good thing considering it had some issues getting to theaters. A release date was pushed back almost a year to transition the film to 3-D (more on that later) amidst rumors of horrific audience screenings. Only a handful of cast members from the original even returned, and those parts are pretty weak in execution. It's not quite a sequel in name only because there are unifying links, but it sure is close to being a stand-alone movie. I'll be giving it a positive review based almost solely on some cool characters and action, but there's some big issues along the way. We'll get there in time.

Taking the helm for the franchise going ahead -- supposedly at least -- Johnson does a fine job as Roadblock. We learn little about him other than meet his two daughters (very briefly), and that he's a capable soldier with just about any weapon at his disposal. Cotrona and Palicki are okay as the rest of the Joes, Palicki there mostly to wear skimpy outfits and fire automatic weapons. Other member of the G.I. Joe organization are Snake Eyes (Ray Park), a helmeted, silent, sword-wielding ninja, and Jinx (Elodie Yung), a ninja who's....well, a ninja with no other background provided. Also joining the cast is Bruce Willis as General Joe Colton, the original inspiration for G.I. Joe. It's not a big part, but Willis makes the most of it, deadpanning his way through a couple good one-liners.

Now for the bad guys, cool because they're bad guys without any real background, reasoning and motivation. Price is the evil President, hamming it up and having some fun with it. Vosloo is there in appearance only, not uttering a word. Byung-hun Lee is the coolest villain as Storm Shadow, a sullen ninja with a tricked out pair of swords with only one rival, Snake Eyes. Ray Stevenson joins the villains too as Firefly, a mercenary working with Cobra. Luke Bracey plays Cobra Commander (replacing Joseph Gordon-Levitt), but it's a wasted part. Little in the way of lines or actual screen time, it's there because the G.I. Joes fight against Cobra commander. That's all. Walton Goggins has a small part as a sinister, brutal prison warden.

Not surprisingly, the best thing going here is the action. With a movie that runs about 100 minutes, I'm guessing no more than three to four minutes go by in between action scenes. We're never far from a chase, shootout, fist fight or cool one-liner. The opening raid to get back the Pakistani nuclear weapons is solid, and the finale at Fort Sumter (yes, Fort Sumter!) is cool because about 100 different things are going on at the same time. The high point is Snake Eyes and Jinx trying to capture Storm Shadow from a heavily guarded mountainside in the Himalayas. Using bungees, Snake Eyes, Jinx and a small army of Cobra ninjas swing perilously thousands off feet up in the air. The action is pretty good, making up for a script that isn't interested in character development at all (we're talking any background at all), scene to scene transitions and dialogue that isn't a snappy one-liner. This is an action movie, pure and simple. Literally, there's nothing else going on!

Okay, quasi-spoilers from here on out. When this sequel was made, producers/studios apparently decided 'Cobra' star Channing Tatum wasn't capable of carrying the franchise going forward. Well, their mistake, because in the time in between, Tatum shot to stardom with 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike among others. As for the pushed back release date? Supposedly audiences hated that Tatum was dispatched rather quickly in this sequel. Reshoots had some more development between Tatum's Duke and Johnson's Roadblock, scenes that are pretty decent but also pretty obvious in how forced they are into the story. Tatum has goatee, doesn't have goatee, does have goatee. It's a ridiculously forced, contrived "solution" that works because Tatum and Johnson have good chemistry, but it's hard not to notice.

In general, there is something missing here. 'Retaliation' is so ridiculously all over the place with so many freaking characters that it is almost frenetic in its final version. It's never dull so that's always a positive, but it is so mindlessly stupid it's hard to describe. A mildly positive review because even through all the flaws, I was entertained from beginning to end.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013): ** 1/2 /****

The Good, the Bad, and the Weird

Since the first time I saw Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I was hooked.  It's easily in my top 10 favorite movies all time (along with a few other Leone movies) and no matter where it's at if I stumble across it on TV, I'm hooked and sitting down for the rest of the movie.  It's one of the best westerns ever made, and according to voters over at IMDB and their scientific voting, one of the best movies ever made.  I'm hard-pressed to disagree.  So a successful movie that's highly regarded? Seems ripe for a remake, right?

In the over 40 years since its release, GBU has been rehashed, redone, spoofed but never straight up remade...thankfully.  Well, the obvious place to expect a remake to come out of is...class, anyone?  That's right, South Korea!  No joke.  I saw the trailer two summers back, and here in 2010 it's finally available on DVD in the U.S., 2008's The Good, the Bad, the Weird.  All that said, a South Korean remake of one of my favorite all-times movies isn't the weirdest thing going here.  What's weirder?  This version is great, and I loved everything about it.  I know, I was surprised as anyone.

It's 1930s Manchuria and petty thief and train robber Yoon Tae-goo (Kang-ho Song) stumbles upon a map that could lead him to a buried treasure hidden for hundreds of years. But as he looks into the origins of the map, Yoon quickly finds out he's bit off more than he can chew.  A hired killer, Park Chang-yi (Byung-hun Lee), and his gang have caught wind of the map's existence and will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. More than that, a mysterious bounty hunter, Park Do-won (Woo-sung Jung), is on the hunt too and the three men's paths seem destined to cross. The promise of a huge payoff is too much for many and soon enough rival gangs are in on the hunt, not to mention the Japanese army's involvement in acquiring the treasure.

This isn't a straight remake obviously because as opposed to the 1860s American Southwest in the Civil War we get 1930s Manchuria.  But overall, the basic premise is the same, three men on the hunt for an epic payoff.  Director Ji-woon Kim has done nearly the impossible here with his 2008 western.  He took a Leone classic, and not only pays homage but also puts his own spin on a classic. At 130 minutes, the scale is immense, and Kim clearly has a large budget.  It's a gorgeous movie, features some great camerawork, a musical score that samples everything from spaghetti western scores to big band to soft jazz to Spanish guitars (listen to a sample HERE) and everything in between. On their own, these things might mean nothing, but together they form the ground level for a great movie.

The three stars don't have the name recognition that Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef have, but their characters stand on their own.  Not unlike Wallach stealing away GBU as bandit Tuco, Song steals the movie as Yoon (the Weird), the insignificant beggar rat of a thief.  It's a very physical part, and Song gives the look of maybe his character isn't all there in the head.  It's hard not to like the character though, and he runs away with every scene he's in.  Lee's Park (the Bad) is the ultimate pretty boy bad guy, always immaculately dressed, his hair just right, as he callously dispatches men all around him.  In the world of cool western bad guys, he's one that won't be quickly forgotten.  Jung's bounty hunter (the Good) gets lost in the shuffle at times, but this aura of an unstoppable gunman is always cool, including one suicidal ride through a gauntlet of Japanese soldiers which he of course survives.  Separately these three are all ridiculously cool characters, and together they're perfect.

Enough of all that snooty movie stuff, let's get to the action, and there is a lot of it.  I'm talking some of the best over the top, ridiculously exaggerated western shoot 'em up I've ever seen.  The opening shootout on a crashed train is just the jumping off point as Kim continues to one-up himself with each passing shootout.  Some are bigger in scale than others, but none disappoint.  There's a gunfight in a scummy motel, a running chase through the claustrophobic, cramped streets of a Manchurian village, and of course, the epic finale.  It's an almost 45 minute extended sequence that has our trio, a rival gang of bandits, and Japanese cavalry and artillery battling it out on a barren desert plain.  I don't even know how to describe it, it's just one of those pitch perfect action sequences that doesn't rely too much on CGI.  Action aficionados will not be disappointed.

Now what do people remember most about the original GBU? For most, it's the three-person shootout in a cemetery in the finale.  GBW stays close to the original while putting its own spin on the proceedings.  The actual ending -- watch through the credits -- didn't blow me away only because the downer ending that could have closed the movie would have jumped into my list for all-time most perfect endings.  But it doesn't end that way, adding an unnecessary but not movie-killing finale.  Would I have kept the ending that comes before the credits? No doubt about it, but as is it's a minor complaint in a movie that I otherwise loved.  Could you tell?

The Good, the Bad, the Weird <---trailer (2008): ****/****

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Now if you're judging my feelings of summer blockbusters by my review of Transformers 2, you might think I hate all those big action movies, but it's really just the opposite. I love movies like that, the review just shows how bad I thought T2 was in comparison to most similar movies. A good example of what an enjoyable summer action blockbuster is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra which surprised me. I thought it looked good but wasn't dying to see it, but a day later I'm still glad I did.

Plots can be secondary and often third or fourth in the list of important elements to a blockbuster, but G.I. Joe takes a familiar formula, villain threatening to destroy the world city by city, and adds an interesting wrinkle with some new technology. They're called the nanomites, microscopic robots originally intended to fight cancer cells but transformed into weapons that take apart and completely dismantle whatever they're shot at, like tanks, cars, buildings, you name it. So here's the plot going from the nanomites.

With some funding from NATO, MARS Industry CEO James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) has perfected turning the nanomites into an offensive weapon and has spent billions of dollars on manufacturing 4 warheads with his new weapon. But while being shipped, the column guarding the warheads is attacked, with Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) as part of the force. Whoever is attacking them, led by the mysterious Baroness (Sienna Miller), has advanced technology that the army is defenseless against. The column is saved by a group of fighters who rescue the warheads and Duke and Ripcord as well.

The group is transported to 'the Pit' a top secret base deep below the Egyptian desert where they're introduced to General Hawk (Dennis Quaid) who explains the layout to their organization. They are G.I. Joe, the best soldiers from all around the world working together to keep Earth safe from whoever would do it harm. Duke and Ripcord blackmail their way into Team Alpha and get to work finding out who wants the technology. Everything points to McCullen who with the Baroness, and henchmen Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee), Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) and one mysterious villian (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) look to make another grab for the nanomite warheads and it doesn't look like anything can stop them.

What I like about big movies like this is that it allows huge casts to work together and let them clearly have fun making a highly entertaining movie. Come on, Dennis Quaid is in the movie for about 15 minutes, delivers some appropriately cheesy/inspirational lines, and looks tough. He's gotta be loving that. The G.I. Joe team is an interesting list of unique actors and characters like Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), the tough sergeant of the group, Snake Eyes (Ray Park) the resident badass and expert in martial arts and by far the coolest Joe, Breaker (Said Taghmaoui), the communication expert, and Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), the team's weapons expert. So as anyone who read some past reviews of mine knows, this is basically the Magnificent 7, a men-on-a-mission movie with Duke and Ripcord joining the team.

With some ridiculously cool technology available, the beneficiary is the action scenes. The coolest gadget was the accerlation suits which help you react quicker and faster, jump higher, so basically PF Flyers on steroids. The chase through Paris as Storm Shadow and the Baroness try to take out the Eiffel Tower is an exciting, well-put together sequence as the Joes frantically try to catch up with Duke and Ripcord in the suits, Scarlet on a motorcycle, and Heavy Duty and Breaker just trying to keep up. On the whole, the action is the reason to see this movie. It's cut so you can actually see what's going on and the CGI is apparent but done well.

On to the casting which ranges from very good to very wooden. I don't know Channing Tatum's appeal, check that, I do but don't get it. The guy's got the personality and delivery of a cardboard box and his so-called dramatic lines come across as comical, hopefully unintentionally so. The rest of the cast makes up for, including surprisingly enough Marlon Wayans who revels in the smartass sidekick role along with Sienna Miller who has finally made a mainstream blockbuster. For one, with dark hair and low-cut leather outfits, she looks amazing, and two, her character is a badass. Hopefully, she sticks with the more mainstream movies, or at least not completely sticking with the indies. It's a fun cast and it looks like they enjoyed themselves making GI Joe.

So is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra a stupid summer blockbuster full of action and somewhat short on story? You bet, but it does what it's supposed to. It doesn't overdo the action sequences and CGI and keeps it exciting without trying to melt your face with its 'Michael Bay coolness.' Good cast top to bottom with one cameo I won't spoil here, and an ending that leaves the door open for a sequel which hopefully they do make in the next couple of years. Surprised by how much I enjoyed this so don't listen to the negative reviews, G.I. Joe is a lot of fun.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra <-----trailer (2009): ***/****