Red 2 reunites crew of aging assassins in fun, bullet-fueled romp.

Sometimes you’re in the mood for a lark.

RED 2 is a comic book come to life, a live-action cartoon with outrageous save-the-world consequences that doesn’t for a second take itself seriously, and nor do we want it to. After all, it’s fun to see AARP members outsmart and outgun people half their age, particularly Dame Helen Mirren, who’s so elegant, so lovely, and yet so deadly with a machine gun.

A sequel to the 2010 hit RED (an acronym for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”), director Dean Parisot’s (Fun with Dick and Jane) story picks up with Frank (Bruce Willis) and his much-younger girlfriend Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) inside a wholesale store. She’s craving excitement, while he’s enjoying living in obscurity. Out of nowhere pops Marvin (John Malkovich), who rants that people are after him before faking his own death in the parking lot. Why he feels the need to fake his death (again) isn’t clear, but people who didn’t see the first film need to know Marvin is a loose cannon and this is a good way to get that across.

It turns out the American government sent a mercenary named Jack (Neal McDonough) to kill the ex-CIA Frank and Marvin, and when Jack fails they hire the best contract killer in the world, Han (Byung-hun Lee). The government is after them because it believes Frank and Marvin know the secrets of Project Nightshade, which a recent WikiLeaks post suggests is about to detonate a nuclear bomb. For help, Frank, Marvin and Sarah turn to Victoria (Mirren) and a Russian spy named Katja (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who has a romantic history with Frank. Anthony Hopkins also stars as Dr. Bailey, the man who created Project Nightshade.

The lighthearted tone allows us to see the fun this older and very respected cast is having playing shoot-em-up for a change, except for Willis, who does this all the time. Malkovich is clearly having a blast as oddball Marvin, and you sense Mirren can’t stop smiling on the inside every time she gets to shoot someone. Newcomers Zeta-Jones and Hopkins also serve the film well, but don’t have as much to do.

The action is completely unrealistic, as it should be when based on a graphic novel. Moreover, the live action goes to animation (similar to what we’d see in a comic book) on a few occasions, just to remind us not to take any of this seriously (as if we could). Accordingly, the most extreme action scenes feel lifted from the pages of a comic: In a close up, Frank stops a flying knife with his bare hands; Frank gets into a speeding car as it spins and the door is opened; Han beats up Russian police using a glass refrigerator door; a nose-first helicopter crash barely leaves a scratch on anyone; and so on.

In a review of the original RED published in the Weekly, the reviewer wrote: “Of all the washed-up, washed-out, over-the-hill, too-old-for-this-shit, action-hero movies we’ve had thrown at us this year – The A-Team, The Losers, The Expendables – Red is by far the most amusing, the most clever, the most tongue-in-cheek, the most fun… Sylvester Stallone and Liam Neeson can only wish they were cool enough to warrant the company of Helen Mirren armed with an enigmatic smile and automatic weaponry.”

Sensing a theme here? As she did in the first flick, the dame (or in this case, Dame) steals the show. She’s a less-self-serious Bond, James Bond, a spy in a skirt, equally adept at flirting and charming as she is at killing. And to see an actress of Mirren’s cool British pedigree having such fun with what could be a cartoon character – well, that brings a great sense of joy to the movie as well.

There’s comedy here, too, with Marvin and Victoria frequently giving Frank and Sarah relationship advice, and enough twists to the story to keep us interested for the two-hour running time. RED 2 is a movie that knows what it is and doesn’t apologize.

For RED fans, here’s good news. Summit Entertainment has already hired scriptwriters to get a script ready for film No. 3. Writers Jon and Erich Hoeber, the team that brought the aging special ops buddies together in the first films, have been tagged for No. 3. Based on the success of the first film, and how successful the sequel should be, it’s time for them to get to work.

RED2 (3) • Directed by Dean Parisot • Starring Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mary Louise Parker • Rated PG-13 • 113 mins. • At Maya Cinemas, Century Cinemas Del Monte, Northridge Cinemas