I've missed you. I hope you've missed me too. Let's never fight again.
"RED 2" starts off with our favorite retired agent and his new, young girlfriend shopping at Costco trying to lay low. But I think we all know how that works out. They are yet again, dragged into something they don't particularly want to be involved with. And as always, they're joined by their lovable, insane friend, whom regardless of what character he's playing, I refer to as John Malkovich from "Being John Malkovich".
Unfortunately, this time sans pig.
"RED 2" is exactly what you'd expect from a sequel to it's predecessor. It's fun, it's action packed and it's got a lot of memorable moments. However, this one didn't come with the element of pleasant surprise that the first one did. At least for me. It's a great film with a lot of funny and quotable lines, but I feel it quite do the first one justice.
But what sequel really does do the first one justice. Besides "X-Men 2". And "The Dark Knight". And "Terminator 2". And "Star Wars: Episode IV". And I would say "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", but I consider them to be one long-ass movie.
What I'm trying to say is, if you enjoyed the first one, you'll enjoy this one...
Here's John Malkovich with a bomb strapped to his chest.
How funny would it be if Joseph Gordon-Levitt was nominated for an Oscar for playing a young Bruce Willis before Bruce Willis got nominated for an Oscar at all?
Granted, I'm sure Bruce Willis doesn't care about Oscars. After all, he is John McClane.
Looper, starring the above mentioned, takes place in the not-so-distant future where time travel has not been invented yet. However, there are hit-men called Loopers, who are employed by people in the future where time travel has been invented, but outlawed. They use the time machines to send people they want dead back into the past to be killed and disposed of. But when a new criminal is running the futuristic world, he starts sending Loopers back and having them killed by their younger selves.
One day a Looper named Joe comes face-to-face with his older self, and hesitates allowing... uh...his older self to.... get away from... his younger self.
Younger Joe's bosses start hunting him to fix the mess, but Joe hides from them while older Joe looks for the new boss who killed his wife and sent him back to kill him as a child.
I have no idea how the hell Rian Johnson, the writer and director of this movie, pitched this or summarized the script. He's a genius for doing so, because I feel stupid just trying to explain it. But this is also why he is a big-time director and I am a guy writing a blog... I'm a failure.
Some of you may remember Rian Johnson from his first feature Brick, also starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His writing style is unique and with enough chances could become as iconic as any other writer/director. And if you haven't seen Brick yet, do yourself a favor and do.
Anyways, this movie was not anything that I expected. I thought it would be more about the older and younger Bruce Willis characters fighting each other, but it had more to that. That was only a small part of this story. There was also a lot more to the characters than I thought there would be.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was unrecognizable as a younger Joe. He has Bruce Willis' mannerisms down so well that it wasn't hard to forget who he was and let myself be engulfed in the story.
I should note that Paul Dano, who plays Joe's friend Seth, though he played a small part, was fantastic. Not many actors can take a small part and make it memorable, but that's exactly what Dano did.
Looper is a great sci-fi movie that I'm sure will be remembered for quite some time.
I would say that Wes Anderson films are the hardest to write about for me. They're all brilliant, but they're also so similar in their style and humor that the only thing I could really ever comment on is the story. So this may be a short one. But I will try my best.
Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of a loaner "khaki scout" (boy scout) who flees his troops base camp in order to meet up with the girl he loves and run away with her. Of course, the small island they reside on goes into panic mode and puts all of their resources into finding the two kids. Wes-Anderson-esque-hilarity ensues.
As usual with Wes Anderson films, the way this film plays out is perfect for the story. The straight on, perfectly framed shots, the dry, unemotional humor. The quick and witty dialogue. It can only be done by a few people. Mostly, just Mr. Anderson.
The story is wonderful, the Actors are fantastic and the Cinematography is superb. And unfortunately, thats all I can really say about this film. Usually, words can not describe Wes Anderson films. One can only trust me that it is great and go see it.
On a different note, here is my favorite commercial ever. Oh, would you look at that! It features Wes Anderson himself!
