Like perhaps many of you, I had seen the posters that have seemed to spring up almost overnight. The four vibrant faces of Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich. The three big emblazoned letters RED, just inspires thoughts of an action movie that the entire world was waiting for. Encouraging you to think what a dynamic cocktail these actors could make.

Little wonder then that I entered the Cinema not quite sure what to expect. Sure I knew the history; RED is based on the three-issue comic book published by DC Comics and created by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. If you have seen comic book to movie conversions though you know as well as I do that it is very much a hit and miss affair how good or bad these movies end up.

“Red”, is derived from the stamp on agent Frank Moses’ (Bruce Willis) file, meaning “Retired, Extremely Dangerous” Frank Moses is a former black-ops CIA agent, now living a quiet life in retirement. However, lonely with retirement he strikes up a slightly somewhat odd relationship with a customer service worker at Frank’s pension office in Kansas City. However, the path of love is never smooth his quiet life of retirement is brought to an abrupt end when he is attacked by a hit squad in the middle of the night.

Frank takes on his assailants and, knowing whoever is after him would have tapped his phone, makes his way to Kansas City to both protect Sarah and also find out who is now after him.

So how does it all play out? Well in my opinion whilst enjoyable the film was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The problem is the genre has been played out so many times before and often with the same actors that I found it hard to get into the movie. To their credit the actors play their part admirably but to my taste I noticed a hint of laziness on more than a couple of occasions. The storyline does permit for some interesting twists with the characters – Helen Mirren as a hit woman turned lady of luxury, John Malkovich as an ex-agent who is now paranoid and always thinks that someone is watching him are great examples of character depth and do produce a chuckle here and a chuckle there. But it is hard to ignore that these are well established actors in their own right and you can’t help feeling that they are capable of doing so much more especially if they were allowed to explore their characters more.

However these might be viewed as minor criticisms as what this movie does well it does extremely well. Adapted for the big screen by brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber (who also wrote the adaptations of Whiteout and Alice) where they did manage to succeed is in the dry, witty humour and quick fire action. I also found the idea of an older operative who is set in his ways having to contend with younger and fit agents as well as new techniques and modern technology quite refreshing. Although, it must be said I saw Bruce Willis in this role in Die Hard 4.0 and it was much a similar vein and did so with more success.

So – my final verdict? If you get the opportunity and are stuck for a movie to go and see you could do worse, however don’t make this the top of your hit list.

By Junior Smart