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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Red

With an award-winning dream cast including some of the world’s most acclaimed actors and a story based on a popular comic book, how could you go wrong? Well, the makers of the new action/comedy RED have found a way, squandering their A-list cast and turning what would appear to be a sure thing into a surprisingly boring and joyless slog.

Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired superagent grappling with the banality and loneliness of middleclass life. His only spark comes from Sarah, played by Mary Louise Parker, who processes his pension checks over the phone and whose only excitement comes from cheesy romance novels. When a hit squad comes to Frank’s house to do him in, he realizes that something is up and that his friendship with Sarah has put her in danger, so he forcibly kidnaps her and embarks on a roadtrip to warn his retired colleagues.

(first date)

Those colleagues include Morgan Freeman as Joe, who is living in a nursing home, and John Malkovich as Marvin, a paranoid conspiracy theorist whose brain has been addled by years of government-administered LSD.

(LSD)

But the films biggest, and perhaps sole bright spot is Dame Helen Mirren as Victoria, a retired MI-5 agent now running a bed and breakfast. Mirren based her performance on Martha Stewart for her domesticity, strength, and cold-hearted professionalism. Probably the best thing in RED is seeing the elegant, sexy Mirren wielding a machine gun.

(meeting Helen)

More good actors? Sure! There’s Frank’s younger-generation nemesis played by Karl Urban, who you may remember as Bones from the new STAR TREK movie. The still sharp, 93-year-old Ernest Borgnine as the keeper of the CIA’s most secret records, Richard Dreyfuss as a rich bad guy of some sort, Brian Cox as Frank’s KGB counterpart turned ally, and one of the guys from NIP/TUCK as a vice president with a shadowy past, and it’s not a missing birth certificate.

So a lot of great actors. Isn’t that enough? that’s the problem.

(band back)

The story is some nonsense about a White House cover up, the dialogue is wooden, there’s no chemistry between Parker and Willis, and her easy acceptance of this new world of mortal danger robs the audience of having someone to relate to. RED is supposed to make statements about ageism and experience versus technology, but that’s mostly lost.

Also, the action isn’t very cool or satisfying. When I see a movie about the best, most badass professional killers in the world, I want to see them kill lots of people in cool ways. Unfortunately, most of the best scenes are in the trailer, and to get a PG-13 rating, our gang of aging super spies rarely kills anyone, which is ridiculous. I would’ve respected RED a lot more if it was a solid R with our heroes ruthlessly dispatching people like the unrepentant killers they’re supposed to be, instead of the sanitized action we get.

While audiences have shown that individual stars matter less, they’ve also signaled their willingness to shell out for pooled star power in movies like THE EXPENDABLES and GROWN UPS, and RED definitely has that. The problem is that it doesn’t have anything else, and while I’m certain the actors had a great time hanging out and making RED, I doubt you’ll have much fun watching it. RED is rated PG-13 and is in theaters now.