I went and saw “RED” the other day…

… and my assessment that it looked like “Grumpy Old Retired Ex-Government Killers” turned out to be pretty spot-on.  Outside of the basic premise of having a former CIA “problem solver” be hunted down by the Agency, the filmmakers took nothing from Warren Ellis’ and Cully Hamner’s comic.  I’m glad that they both got a nice chunk of change for the film rights (I know that Ellis used his to buy his daughter a pony), but I hope that the next adaptation of one of the man’s works for the screen actually bothers to “adapt” the material rather than using it as a springboard for their own story.

As for the movie itself, it was okay.  The action was loud and dumb in the way that millions of bullets were fired, but no one ever seemed to get shot.  One scene stood out as being particularly brain-dead as the team of killers who have come to take out Bruce Willis unload into his house with sustained automatic weapons fire.  On an occupied street.  In suburbia.  And they fail to kill him.  There are some better scenes later on, though the highlight is a knock-down, drag-out fight between Willis and Karl Urban in the latter’s office.  Still, this isn’t a movie you’ll want to see for its action.

If there’s anything that makes this movie watchable, it’s the cast.  Consummate professionals all (including two Academy Award winners), any enjoyment I got out of the film was in watching them have fun with their roles.  While Willis, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich are stuck in roles that we’ve seen them do many times before, there’s an ease and effortless fun to the way they inhabit them here (plus Malkovich knows how to mesh his eccentricities in mainstream fare to great effect).  Mary-Louise Parker has fun with the role of ordinary girl thrust into the world of covert ops, and Karl Urban wrings as much sympathy as he can from a thankless role.

However, the real stars of the show are Helen Mirren and Brian Cox.  The latter is clearly enjoying herself here and shows that Adrien Brody (in “Predators”) wasn’t the only Oscar winner to prove that they had serious action-movie chops this year.  Brian Cox, on the other hand, shows that he’s as smooth an operator as they come.  As a “still connected” Russian intelligence agent, he provides a to the “good old days” of the Cold War era when everyone knew the rules and how to play by them.  His conversation with Willis over vodka in a basement is a highlight of the film.

These people can only elevate tired material so far.  In the sense that without them, the film wouldn’t have merited a theatrical release.  As it is, you’d be better off either renting it or catching it on cable, or just buy the comic.  It may be more expensive, but it’s a more entertaining experience.