RED (2010)

Brilliant and touching

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Action scenes and combat were good enough for me. Marvin Bogs (actor: John Malkovich) was nicely characterized and it was delightful to watch him. But even his characterization had its own flaws.The first bad thing that caught my eye was Frank's calmness and exorbitant "coolness". He was being assaulted by 2 SWAT squads, however, it felt like he didn't even worry, as if he was invaded a 100 times in the past and it is casual for him. Not only that assault should've been alerting, there were multiple situations, where anyone would get sweaty hands. His past was told very briefly. It wasn't enough to convince me, that he can act cool in those situations.Directing had many flaws. The very first minutes of the movie felt really weird. Frank woke up at exactly 6:00 without any alarm, if that is not unrealistic enough, he woke up like "a robot", that was unnatural. Also when Sarah had tape on her mouth in the car, she could've easily removed it, as her hands were tied in front of her. That is minor, but still caught my eye. The way Frank exited the car was really weird and unrealistic.Characterization lacked reason and was inadequate. Not only franks boldness was exaggerated, but while he appeared to be "professional", he fell in love with Sarah, a woman he has never seen in real life. Is he a teen? Sarah itself had little characterization, which had no reason. She was in shock, which should've rankled her. However, she later joins Frank's company with alacrity. Also, their love was "technical". No emotions, no romance.Marvin was a funny and interesting personality and he was characterized as very aware. The characterization on him was done well, however it had no influence to the main story. His abilities to detect threat didn't appear to have any effect in the end. Good, but useless characterization.It was hard to understand the story itself, due to lack of origins for the events and actions. A lot of things lacked reason.I lacked subtle, but influential details, which always buys my attention.At least is wasn't a torment to watch the movie, but it had too many flaws.

As Morgan Freeman puts it, "We're getting the band back together. That's nice"and it's when the cast is having fun with the material that "RED" is decent. And a solid cast it is, but the lead was entirely miscast. Bruce Willis applies his halfhearted smirk and lets everyone else do the heavy lifting. And so much of this focuses on his character, so he just sucks the energy right out of it.I didn't like watching this very much because the tone was all over the place. When the (better) costars were on the screen, there was glee, there was energy; and they're doing their best with lackluster characters. If Willis would just get out of the way and let Malkovich, Freeman and Mirren work, this would be great.5/10 Speaking of Helen Mirren, she's the shining star of this movie. She just lights up the screen like the guns she wields (which are huge). And that is something to see.

I was shown Red back in 2010. I had no interest in watching it, but when I finally did, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this movie is filled with hilarious and action packed moments. The casting was well done. Having Bruce Willis cast as Frank Moses was a great move and having other well known names such as Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich was a nice touch. Mary Louise-Parker was great in the character of Sarah, but my favorite character of them all was by far Marvin. He said most of the jokes and I found that him being a crazy, aging man was the perfect role for John Malkovivh. Red was one of the few action/comedy movies that kept true to it's title. Never once during the entire movie did I find that the movie had changed directions and abandoned what it promised to be. The final few scenes were shot near perfectly, with such a well thought-out finale to this movie being the best part. If you have enjoyed other Bruce Willis films or want to have a few good laughs in an action movie, I cannot recommend this film more.

Red is based on a DC Comics even tho the film is not the best comic book movie you will ever see it's still strong cause of it's strong cast Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Brican Cox and many more also the film has some strong action scenes and lots of laughs (mostly from Malkovich). If you like Comics and DC then you're going to love this film it's not the best movie that Bruce Willis ever made but for sure better than most of his recent. Like i said a great movie with many action sequences and funny moments around a great cast of talented actors. A 10 out of 10 i liked it a lot!!!