The retired, extremely dangerous gang are back for another trigger-happy comedy. Former CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is happy with the quiet life but his girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) is bored. When it comes to Frank and Sarah, the attraction is action, suggests their buddy Marvin (John Malkovich). So the trio embarks on a mission to keep a next-generation weapon out of terrorist hands. This takes them to Paris (enter Catherine Zeta-Jones), London (hello Helen Mirren) and Moscow. It should be a zippy ride but stale dialogue and a bored-looking Bruce Willis slow things down. Parker, Malkovich and Mirren wring a few laughs out of the script before scene-stealer Anthony Hopkins brightens the mood as a retired physicist who may or may not be insane.
Ultimately, it’s popcorn nihilism without the big laughs that helped distract from the casual approach to life and death in ‘Red’. To quote ‘Austin Powers’: ‘People never think how things affect the family of a henchman’. Now that was funny.