Red 2, the movie review.
We went to see a movie yesterday. Not a film, a movie. It was called Red 2. It was derived from a comic book called Red. I haven’t seen the comic book. If the movie is anything to go by, the comic book is about state sanctioned sociopaths and just how cool guns are. I don’t think the world needs to be told just how cool guns are; it seems that message is out already. I’m not too worried about the possible pedagogical effects of this message on demoralised, disenchanted, delinquents. You might think I would be, champion of social justice and all, but, no, not so much. Everyone in the movie was way old. Bruce Willis and John Malkovitch, the latter looks for the word befuddled. He finds it -- it was in the script I guess. So, with all that going on and the geriatric shenanigans, the young and star struck uberclasses who aspire to get rich and kill, will not feel they were the target market for this psychopathology. Good news, huh? Damn, I was the target market.
Well that explains the sound track being real songs with melody and not just thump rhyme. It explains the undercurrent of nostalgia for the cold-war, you know, back in the day, when the world made sense. Yeah, it was for me. It was all so clear and the movie about a comic book put it all in place. The Russian’s are evil, not to be trusted and Duke Nuke-em. The Chinese, whoa, watch out for them, they don't even need guns half the time. Hong Kong, what’s that, like New York or something? Paris, you go shopping there, man. London, that place was so over in the 17th Century, now it’s just weird architectural mush-mash and what’s with the Ferris wheel? Hey, you know what’s cool? Watching stuff get blown up.
Yuppers, it was like cathartic or something. Well, at least I found it was. No so much taking out the rich dudes with extreme prejudice, I don't really harbour resentment for my powerlessness, sociologically speaking. Not so much either for blowing up the toilets; that was funny in school but now I respect plumbing. Cutting cars in half with Gatling machine guns? Well, sure, I really don’t like cars that much. The “clean” red-mercury fusion bomb exploding safely off to the side of London and creating an apocalyptic spreading of the sky worthy of Revelations? Nah, I have a pretty simple eschatology and I’m not of the self-important human school, we can all go with a whimper, it’s not that Big Bang that interests me. But the plane, boss, the plane! I loved watching the plane get it! Man, if only it had been a Virgin Airlines 737-800, that would have been something spectacular! I guess I’m not over my vacation trip yet. Yeah, that felt good.
Oh, and so did Mary-Louise Parker. She plays a great comic book character. She’s got the depth to do it. M-LP has just the right degree of quirky, not all overdone and phony like that Meg Ryan. This was brilliant casting for my demographic. I really felt myself falling a little bit in love with her amongst the human remains and mayhem. The best part is she’s all forty-nine years old, so I didn’t even feel creepy crush or anything. We had an honest relationship.
So, there you have it. Much ado about nothing. Red 2, about eighty minutes of aged baby-boomer havoc folded in a context of sociopathic xenophobia brought to you by the arms and munitions industry. A real tale for our time. Now, it’s time for my Geritol and Prozac?