Red (2010) Directed by Robert Schwentke

There are few things more annoying than a simple action flick that gets told in a totally convoluted way, which is taking away most of the fun out of the movie.

This never feels like a complicated or terribly deep movie, yet, you'll most likely still have a hard time following the story. It's mainly because it's not a very focused movie. The story feels all over the place at times and it too often feels like the main characters don't even have a plan to go by and when they do have a plan, it usually is something incredibly silly, unlikely and just plain over-the-top. In any case, it never ever is anything engaging or likable to watch.

Besides, the movie feels like it consists out of two totally different and unrelated halves. The first half of the movie is a simply 'man on a mission' type of movie, involving the Bruce Willis character and the Mary-Louise Parker character as the sidekick/love interest. The second half of the movie however is more of a team on a mission movie, with also far more action in it, in which neither the Bruce Willis or Mary-Louise Parker character plays a big or significant role anymore. It just doesn't feel right and adds to the inconsistency and 'confusion' of the overall movie. It also is disappointing how this movie isn't featuring a strong main villain in it but instead a whole bunch of small ones, who are only in the movie for a couple of minutes. So you don't even always ever really know who the good guys are fighting against but more importantly; you don't even always know or understand what for or why either.

The fact that this movie stars a bunch of 'old' people in it is nothing but a gimmick. It doesn't make this movie any more fun or special to watch. It's like any other ordinary action flick, only executed more poorly than usual. It never becomes a very creative or original movie with anything and when it does, it just doesn't work out because it's usually something far too silly to watch.

Well, it still is far from the worst movie or action flick you can watch but still, of course more was to be expected from a movie starring the likes of Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, Karl Urban and Richard Dreyfuss in it. It doesn't exploits its potential or ever uses its talented cast very well but it at least still offers some mild entertainment, with both its action and comedy.

So, some mild entertainment in an otherwise weak and even somewhat messy action-comedy.

5/10

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