Red

This is one of those tough movies to review, since I can't say that "Red" is an exceptionable good movie or an exceptionable awful one.  Its just good enough.  Not great, not amazing, not new, but good enough.  Its a B minus, you pass the test, but aren't proud of it.  And here I am, having seen a movie I essentially enjoyed, want to recommend it fully 100% but just can't.  Its kinda like my review of "Iron Man 2", the movie works in pretty much every entertaining aspect you can judge it upon and gives exactly what it advertises, but there's nothing special about it.  There was something missing from this production, and God knows if I'll ever figure out what it was.

I think the closest comparison I can make for an ensemble action comedy like "Red" is "The Expendables", a movie which I hate more and more with every passing day.  "Red" is exactly everything that "The Expendables" wasn't:  funny, well-acted, interesting, entertaining, and full of characters that you get to meet and love.  Of course, "Red" isn't exactly a collaboration of supposedly the greatest action movie stars of the last three decades (which "The Expendables" wasn't by the way), instead its a collaboration of great legendary actors like Helen Mirren, John Malkovich*, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ernest Borgnine - who yes, is somehow still alive.  Mary-Louis Parker has brought all her sexiness over from TV's "Weeds", and is paired up with actually action movie star, Bruce Willis.  If you were wondering why Willis couldn't spend more than five minutes on the set of "The Expendables", I guess this is the reason:  he found a better movie to do.  So with an amazing cast like this, I couldn't possibly miss "Red".  So the funny bit is, all these mostly aged actors and actresses are supposed to put down their Oscars and go out and save America from a criminal espionage conspiracy that goes almost to the very top... just one office away from the very top, actually.

Also like every movie this year, its based on a comic book I've never heard of.  I guess movies have run out of ideas to farm from books, plays, video games, and Disney amusement park rides, so they're now turned to obscure comic books.

The plot goes like this:  Bruce Willis (don't know his character's name, don't care) is a retired CIA superspy living out his retirement in quiet lonely agony in the suburbs.  "Red", the title, actually refers to him:  "Retired Extremely Dangerious".  Because he has virtually nothing in his life, he sparks up a long-distance pretend flirtation with Mary-Louis Parker (who I'm just going to call "Nancy") who is the telemarketer at some pension service in Kansas City.  Unfortunately Bruce is suddenly attacked by a bunch of assassins with machine guns, and now he and Nancy are caught in some international conspiracy out to do... something, its never very clear what.  Its also not clear why they want Bruce Willis dead, or why Nancy would be included in this hit.  It doesn't matter, really, its not like these spy thrillers ever make too much sense anyway.  So now Bruce has to go gather up all his old spy buddies while finding out who wants him dead while not becoming dead while trying to to spark up a romance with Nancy.  He's got a busy week in front of him.

Unfortunately this plot suddenly creates three separate stories going on simultaneously:  Bruce Willis's kidnapping and subsequent attempts to woo Nancy, Bruce Willis and the old spy gang of aged veteran actors coming together again for one final adventure, and the stupid spy thriller which nobody - not even the movie itself - cares about.  The espionage portions seem to be leftovers from some completely different movie.  It has twists that aren't quite so much surprising as totally random and unexplainable.  After seeing the movie, I couldn't even give you specifics as to why the criminal conspiracy wants these characters dead or what its even trying to do.  The villain just says "I'm a baaaaaad guy" in a heavy Long Island accent, explaining everything as far as this movie is concerned.  Plot 2 is actually the one that was advertised, and does make for an interesting film, if a big submerged in the other issues.  If the whole movie was just that, I would be probably have a much more glowing recommendation here.  Then there's Plot 1... an equally good idea for a movie, but it just doesn't belong here.  Plot 1 should be a completely different movie, I think:  a black comedy where a lonely ex-CIA agent kidnaps a pretty women he talks to over the phone, and then attempts to make her fall in love with him... and succeeds somehow.  With these three plots fighting "Red" is not a sharp clever film but rather a somewhat muddled comedy that could have been so much better.  It also means this movie nearly hits two hours, which is way too long for something like this.

The entire CIA big brother business is so cliched now that the movie doesn't even pause to consider the implications here.  The government can murder innocent citizens?  Not one character takes even the slightest interest in what that means.  Doesn't the CIA have more important things to do like catching Osama Bin Ladin than chasing Bruce Willis?  What this means is that the movie is simply working off the tropes, without even stopping to consider what they even represent any more.  If this spy thriller genre has reached that low, I think its about time we dump the entire thing.

Plus there's the action... its bad.  There's one good scene where John Malcovich shoots a stinger missile with a handheld, that's pretty cool, but that's it.  There's a very long sequence towards the end where Helen Mirren gets into a fire-fight with Secret Service agents - it isn't good.  It isn't that Helen Mirren can't pull it off, its just that the director puts together such a lazy done-before effect for fight scenes.  There's none of the flair of "The Losers" and none of the art of "Scott Pilgrim"**.  Its like I'm watching "Casino Royal" again:  the movie is great, but the fight scenes are boring.  The fight between Bruce Willis and Karl Urban (who plays a rival CIA agent with "cute hair") is probably the most intense and kinetic bit of violence of the entire film.

On the other hand, the banter between the characters is quite good.  There are plenty of funny moments here for you to enjoy.  As a comedy, this movie succeeds.  It is an inherently funny idea to have Helen Mirren's gingerly English grandmother-personality clash with her destroying bad guy ass.  Then there's Morgan Freeman kicking out the Nelson Mandela accent for use in infiltrating a villain's compound.  That's always great.  The running gag involving post cards was the most clever bit.  I also liked how the entire cast, and Nancy especially, who was living out her favorite spy novel seemed to be enjoying themselves.  The party atmosphere exists on the screen and not just behind it, like I'm certain occurred in "The Expandables".

And that's really the only point I'm left to make:  its better than "The Expandables".  Better by a mile.  Still not a great movie, but it passes.

Also, considering the genre, Matt Damon should have been kicking around this film somewhere.

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* John, who might be the brother of Adam, Samus's domineering cock-wad of a commanding officer.  John Malkovich, despite being one of the most off-putting actors in Hollywood, is actually less creepy than Adam, amazingly.

** As a matter of fact, "Scott Pilgrim"'s cartoony style would have done this movie wonders.  If that movie could make Michael "I'm a giant pussy, please fuck me" Cera look like an action star, the same director could certainly make Morgan Freeman look like he could devour your voice.