Red 2 - film review

“The Expendables meets The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” isn’t an obviously winning formula, but 2010’s noisy comedy of ageing spies at play proved popular enough to demand this thin sequel.

Bar the addition of Anthony Hopkins and a Fanta-tanned Catherine Zeta-Jones to the ranks, it’s business as before, as ex-CIA man Frank (Bruce Willis) is roped by trapper-hatted colleague Marvin (John Malkovich) into a daft scheme to recover a Cold War-era nuclear device.

Forget the plot: you ask is Helen Mirren back to look fabulous while wielding firearms in furs? Yes, she is. Some may consider that worth the price of admission, though it’s not enough to justify a Red 3.