RED2011-04-11 13:16 GMT
RED started off so well. We're introduced to the main character, Frank, a retired CIA badass who's trying to woo Sarah, a customer support lady at his pension company by calling her every few days pretending his cheques haven't arrived. It's all very sweet. Then we're shown just how much ass he can kick when a wetwork team randomly invades his home. He kicks lots of it. Finally, assuming he's no longer safe to hang around, he merrily trots off to pay a surprise visit to Sarah in Kansas.
And this is pretty much where the film breaks from an interesting character story with some sweet action scenes, to a generic action comedy with a bunch of two dimensional characters. Sarah is drawn into the whole thing because "they" were listening to their phone conversations and so are out to get her. Unwilling to follow Frank, he's forced to kidnap her, at which point her only role in the film seems to be to watch the other "retired and extremely dangerous" characters as they get into fights and attempt to unravel the convoluted plot. Her transition from scared kidnapee to someone who actively encourages and is turned on by the violence and questionable activities (such as breaking into CIA headquarters, apparently punishable by death) is so sudden as to make my mind double-take.
The other characters aren't really worth talking about. Morgan Freeman reprises his role as Oh Look, It's Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren is a prim and proper wetwork agent who still takes jobs on the side, and John Malkovich is the crazy one who's a bit like Hannibal out of the A-Team.
The thing is, this film is an adaption of a popular graphic novel, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but it becomes very apparent when the characters start uttering lines that have been lifted verbatim from the page. Shots, too, have clearly been made to closely resemble those from the novel, but both of these things require a certain level of translation to work in a film. You can't just port one to the other and expect it not to seem out of place.
In the end, RED was actually an enjoyable action comedy, but the excellent opening scenes set my expectations far too high and it was ultimately something I couldn't bring myself down from. That, combined with the jarring shots and lines pulled straight from the source material broke my usual ability to put my brain into neutral and enjoy the film for what it was, and led me instead to nitpick every last detail.
Is it a film worth watching? Yes, I suppose. You might not feel robbed of the time you spent watching it, but you probably won't feel that it was time well spent either.
6/10
And this is pretty much where the film breaks from an interesting character story with some sweet action scenes, to a generic action comedy with a bunch of two dimensional characters. Sarah is drawn into the whole thing because "they" were listening to their phone conversations and so are out to get her. Unwilling to follow Frank, he's forced to kidnap her, at which point her only role in the film seems to be to watch the other "retired and extremely dangerous" characters as they get into fights and attempt to unravel the convoluted plot. Her transition from scared kidnapee to someone who actively encourages and is turned on by the violence and questionable activities (such as breaking into CIA headquarters, apparently punishable by death) is so sudden as to make my mind double-take.The other characters aren't really worth talking about. Morgan Freeman reprises his role as Oh Look, It's Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren is a prim and proper wetwork agent who still takes jobs on the side, and John Malkovich is the crazy one who's a bit like Hannibal out of the A-Team.
The thing is, this film is an adaption of a popular graphic novel, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but it becomes very apparent when the characters start uttering lines that have been lifted verbatim from the page. Shots, too, have clearly been made to closely resemble those from the novel, but both of these things require a certain level of translation to work in a film. You can't just port one to the other and expect it not to seem out of place.
In the end, RED was actually an enjoyable action comedy, but the excellent opening scenes set my expectations far too high and it was ultimately something I couldn't bring myself down from. That, combined with the jarring shots and lines pulled straight from the source material broke my usual ability to put my brain into neutral and enjoy the film for what it was, and led me instead to nitpick every last detail.
Is it a film worth watching? Yes, I suppose. You might not feel robbed of the time you spent watching it, but you probably won't feel that it was time well spent either.
6/10