Sunday, October 17, 2010

RED



Just saw RED with my son -- an action movie starring a bunch of old pros playing old retired secret agents. 


Lightweight, waaay silly, but it was everything that the Stallone movie The Expendables was not -- witty, clever, well-acted, and I had a fine ole time. Great action sequences, and watching Willis and Freeman and Malkovich and Mirren breeze through this was a treat.


Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 70%, but I'm guessing that viewers my age rated it a lot higher. 


Worth seeing for the actors' facial expressions alone. There's one shot of Helen Mirren with her back to a locked gate that was a testament to great acting chops -- an expression that lasted maybe three-quarters of a second. I went "Whoa!" when I saw that. Wonderful stuff. 


Speaking as a guy who wrote a novel about a couple of retired ops dragged back into the biz, I was entertained. There was even a line so close to one I used in my book I would have thought they swiped it if the movie hadn't been mostly shot before my novel was published.


"You made a mistake, Grandpa."


Followed by a room-destroying fight, in the middle of which was this:


 "Was so-and-so your teacher?" 


"Yeah." 


"I was his teacher ..."


You old guys will love it. Some of you younger folk might like it, too. 

4 comments:

Jason said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jason said...

Sounds like they altered the heck out of the graphic novel's plot for the movie. I am interested to see if it is for the better.

Warren Ellis, (the graphic novel's writer), was heavily involved in the movie so it wouldn't surprise me to see it improved. He is a damn fine writer when he is on.

The graphic novel was pretty good, if awfully dark, but it was a bit short for a full length move. When I heard they were doing a movie of it, I wondered how they would flesh it out and if they would lighten it up.

Sounds like it was fun, at least, that is good.

Brad said...

Sounds like I'm going to go have to see it sooner rather than later.

Thanks for the tip.

Evan Robinson said...

Saw it tonight! Wonderful! And having read Bristlecone only made it better!