Good for whom?

Rating: 5/10 (24 October 2010)

I really wanted to like RED, I couldn't help but be excited by the legendary cast and the promise of laughs a plenty. Yet somehow for me it ended with a pretty devastating sense of disappointment and emptiness.
I'll attempt to break down where it all went wrong by stating that the problems are in the main fundamental. Firstly the script is as unoriginal as it gets churning out tired old clichés and drab gags that tell themselves. Secondly the direction is confused and inconsistent, director Robert Schwentke seems to try too hard to be the star of the show using distracting and overblown visuals meshed in with an unforgiving collection of load expensive gun fights. Further the film lacks the ability to find it's audience, jumping fidgetily between generic action comedy and stumbling occasionally into attempts of deeper and more contrite self-reflection.
The least irritating element of the film is the cast, who with all mentioned previously are left with the unenviable task of trying to make something of out of very little. Bruce Willis leads from the front as the former Black-ops agent Frank Moses who endeavours to reunite his former crew (Mirren,Freeman and Malkovich) to help him solve an intricate plot he has unwittingly become part of, whilst dragging over-matched love interest Mary-Louise Parker along for the ride.
I can't help but feel that with such an illustrious cast and big budget that this was a wasted opportunity. RED isn't half as terrible as it is disappointing yet it's just hard to shake the feeling that the cast had a much better time making it than I and many others will have watching it.
5/10