The Odd Cast Of Red 2, Or When Good Actors Go Bad

With Red 2 — the sequel to Bruce Willis’ unlikely 2010 hit — about to be inflicted upon moviegoers later this week, audiences should prepare themselves for more wacky hijinks from its cast of crackpot actors. Put simply, the Red franchise is a load of garbage, but, for some reason, people enjoyed watching the first film’s gaggle of mature-aged stars duke it out so much that they’ve gone and done it all again. The original premise remains intact: prestige actors who tick the ’50-or-over’ box get goofy with guns. But when even its own star threatens to quit acting on opening weekend, you know you’re dealing with a turkey.

The film’s unlikely cast got me thinking about stars and just how prestigious their careers really are. It’s easy to remember Joan Crawford as the stunning, Academy Award-winning actress from Mildred Pierce (1945), but she also made a series of ridiculously awful films including Trog (1970), which late film critic Roger Ebert once described as “a movie where Joan Crawford, dressed in an immaculate beige pantsuit, hunts through a cave shouting ‘Trog! Here, Trog!’ to her pet troglodyte”. Even Marlon Brando had the terrible one-two punch of Don Juan DeMarco (1994) and The Island Of Dr Moreau (1996), and do we dare suggest that Meryl Streep has had her share of appalling dogs (hell, she won an Oscar for The Iron Lady just last year!). So are Red‘s iconic actors really worthy of their reputations?

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John Malkovich

Okay, I’ll give you Being John Malkovich (1999) and Shadow Of The Vampire (2000), and I can be entertained by his slithering villainy in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Portrait Of A Lady (1996) and even Con Air (1997), but have you ever seen Colour Me Kubrick (2005) in which he absurdly “impersonates” Stanley Kubrick? It’s a performance as nonsensical as the film that houses it. And then there’s Eragon (2006), Changeling (2008), The Libertine (2004), Rounders (1998), Johnny English (2003), and an entire filmography littered with titles many of us have probably never heard of before.

Verdict: Quite overrated!

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Helen Mirren

Yes, she’s acting royalty (or, you know, portrayed royalty at least five times), but much like her Gosford Park (2001) co-star Maggie Smith, Dame Helen Mirren has a tendency towards laziness and is generally lavished with critical praise simply for showing up on set. Have you seen The Tempest (2010)? You’d be wise to avoid that cheap-looking, fumbled gender swap of Shakespeare’s play, as well as the recent remakes of Brighton Rock (2010) and Arthur (2011), the limp National Treasure 2 (2007), Teaching Mrs Tingle (1999), 2010 (1984), Raising Helen (2004), and last year’s utterly ridiculous Hitchcock. Also, let’s face it, Taylor Hackford’s Love Ranch (2010) is only worth watching to see Bai Ling and Gina Gershon playing brothel workers. Sure, her stage work is almost unparalleled (as in the recent The Audience, where she yet again played Queen Elizabeth II), but I sincerely hope she has at least nine beach houses by now, after all the junk she’s filmed.

Verdict: Somewhat overrated!

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Morgan Freeman

The first African American to portray both the President Of The United States and God, Freeman opted out of a returning role in the Red sequel — a wise decision! What wasn’t wise, however, was that he decided to star in this year’s bomb Olympus Has Fallen instead. Likewise, his roles in The Bucket List (2007), Hard Rain (1998) and Along Came A Spider (2001) were iffy, not to mention his tendency to apparently accept any narration job that comes his way. Never shy of a paycheck, Freeman nevertheless still has enough genuine classics on his resume like The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Unforgiven (1992), and Street Smart (1987) to justify his reputation.

Verdict: Good enough!

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Anthony Hopkins

One of the new additions to Red 2, Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins is rightly considered an acting legend. Uh, we think? Sure, he had that great ’90s period where he iconically defined Thomas Harris’ Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs (1991), and followed that up with acclaimed turns in Howards End (1992), The Remains Of The Day (1993), Spotswood (1992), Dracula (1992), Nixon (1995), and Titus (1999). Sadly, though, he followed that up with a decade-and-a-bit of roles in stinkers like Bobby (2006), Meet Joe Black (1998), Alexander (2004), The Rite (2011), Hearts In Atlantis (2001) and Hitchcock (2012), as well as unforgivably turning his once menacing Lecter into a snivelling, camp Jason Voorhees in Hannibal (2001).

Verdict: Reputation tarnished!

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Of course, for every actor whose career is not as sparkly as we’re lead to believe, there are those currently chastised who will no doubt become the focus of retrospectives in decades to come. Take Red 2’s main man, Bruce Willis: yes, many of his post-Die Hard action flicks are nonsense, but we shouldn’t easily dismiss an actor with Pulp Fiction (1994), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Sixth Sense (1999), and Death Becomes Her (1992) amongst his body of work. So if the idea of watching old ‘icons’ goofing around on a shoot ’em up caper doesn’t sound like your kinda thing, just remember that these classics are always available for a rewatch instead.

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Red 2 opens in cinemas nationally this Thursday.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer and film critic from Melbourne, and currently based in New York City. His work has been seen online (Onya Magazine, Quickflix), in print (The Big Issue, Metro Magazine, Intellect Books Ltd’s World Film Locations: Melbourne), as well as heard on Joy 94.9.