I have to be honest, when I first saw the trailers for Red on TV and in theaters I had no idea what the movie was about. All I knew was that it had some pretty big stars and was based off a DC comic book. I was then given the opportunity to see this movie in advance and since having watched Frozen I now have the slogan, “at least this won’t be the worst movie I’ve ever seen.” I’m happy to say that Red is nowhere near that level.
Let me start off by saying that it isn’t necessary to have read the comic or its Wikipedia page. I was able to watch the entire movie and enjoy it. In fact I only first checked out its Wikipedia page just to see if there was anything from the comic that I might have missed due to never reading it, and there doesn’t seem to be.
Anyway, in the commercials they call it an “action comedy” and that’s a perfect description for the movie. The humor is pretty dry, but nonetheless it is funny. I felt that the movie had a good mix of action and comedy throughout. There really weren’t any slow parts to the movie. Even when there was extended dialogue it would be broken up by a witty comment or some slap comedy.
Bruce Willis plays his typical cop role, except in this case he was a retired CIA agent. I liked his character and the way he played him. It’s like a mix between the cop he played in Cop Out and his character in the Die Hard movies. His love interest in the movie is Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker). She’s somewhat of a forgettable character because she’s the generic damsel in distress. My favorite character was Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich). Boggs was said to have gotten daily doses of LSD for 11 years that altered his mental state. Essentially he’s this really quirky, funny guy that always has a ton of weapons and likes to shoot them. Morgan Freeman as Joe Matheson is also in the movie. I don’t really know how else to describe his character but as a mix between his characters in Shawshank Redemption and The Dark Knight. Two other characters I must mention are Victoria (Helen Mirren) and Robert Stanton (Julian McMahon). Victoria was a character that showed up later in the movie but provided further comic relief and more than anything else another female character on screen that wasn’t so generic. I mention Robert Stanton only because some of you might know him better as Doctor Christian Troy from Nip Tuck. I was surprised to see him in this movie but feel that for the limited role he was in it was well done.
Overall, I’d say this is a good movie to see with really anyone. It’s really not a guy flick and definitely not a chick flick. It’s a movie that I think falls somewhere nicely in the middle. I can definitely see some of the younger crowd shying away from it as most of the actors are older and possibly not as well know as they used to be; but they’re really just missing out. I think that it will fair well at the box office but with Jackass 3D coming out will lose most if not all of the teenagers to that movie.
I rate it a fun filled action adventure comedy.
Check out the trailer below:
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