RED (2010)

Tagline: Still armed. Still dangerous. Still got it.

Curiosity: It’s like The Expendables but with a more critically acclaimed cast.

Plot: Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retired black-ops CIA agent looking for love. He’s developed a phone relationship with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) and wants to take it to the next level. They have so much in common, and while Moses doesn’t want to rush things, he really does think, deep down in that place he refuses to admit exists, that he could love and be loved. Be known. Be held.

Anyway, then some dudes show up with machine guns and blow the fuck out of his house, so he kills them dead and then meets up with his retired super spy friends and they have cool super spy adventures while making cracks about whippersnappers.

Thoughts: While the angles are different, The Expendables and RED are fairly similar movies about old hands kicking ass in a kitschy fashion. But RED can’t step Expendables’ groove. For all its flaws, that movie was just too great. And while it was certainly a dumb movie, it never felt dumbed-down. RED, meanwhile, spells out every location and plot change to an obnoxious degree. It tries so hard to be a silly, over-the-top spy thriller, whereas Expendables just is without resorting to pretensions.

RED has a solid cast though. Not Dolph Lundgren-good, but still pretty good. Willis is, of course, badass. That’s kind of what he does. Parker and Helen Mirren are to RED what Mickey Rourke was to Expendables – way better than their respective films probably deserve. And you know what, I like Karl Urban. Dude rocked it in Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and, uh, Pathfinder, and he goes blow for blow with Willis, and that guy has left many a Hans Gruber dead in his wake.

But man was I let down by Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich. Freeman phones it in, although his character is a big deus ex machina anyway. Malkovich is meant to be the comedic relief as a drugged out retired agent, but his role becomes tiresome quickly.

nd the same goes for the film overall. RED isn’t particularly funny or action-packed. It’s a solid afternoon movie, the kind you watch once and then never think about again, but that’s it.

Reflection: I’m kind of annoyed Brian Cox isn’t on the movie poster. He’s so much better than Freeman here AND his character is more important. WTF?