None of the stars manages to save it from mediocrity

Rating: 5/10 (7 May 2020)

I wanted RED to turn out to be a good movie and with its star-studded cast it appeared to be fail-safe. Unfortunately, it was yet another average action flick, featuring a combination of well-known tropes associated with the genre and a weak story that gets overshadowed by stunts.
Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker turned out to be the film's weakest links. The two carried the plot in the opening twenty minutes, at which time the movie was completely uneventful and set to become unwatchable. Parker's stereotypical and foolish character remained uninteresting throughout the film, with her performance being the worst among RED's ensemble.
It was only after the introduction of John Malkovich's character some thirty minutes into the movie that RED became a relatively enjoyable action comedy. Malkovich plays a paranoid ex-spy, sort of continuing his brilliant performance in Burn After Reading a couple of years earlier and almost single-handedly giving RED its comedic note.
Morgan Freeman happened to appear in quite a few similarly scripted action films over the past decade and he was usually successful at keeping them viewable. In RED, he has a relatively unremarkable presence, with his highlight being the scene in which he appears wearing a lavishly decorated military uniform associated with African dictators. He is shot dead shortly thereafter, having changed into a stereotypical detective outfit consisting of a black coat and a black hat.
Karl Urban, who was memorable as a Russian villain in the second installment of the original Jason Bourne trilogy, gives a solid performance in RED as well, playing something like the main antagonist in a movie that does not really differentiate between the good and the bad guys. Of course, RED has its own Russian character, too, played by another actor who appeared in the Bourne films, Brian Cox, although he is completely unrecognizable here by comparison. His character is stereotypical, but frequently amusing. For the most part, his main accomplice is played by Helen Mirren, who delivers a solid performance in an otherwise uninteresting role.
Even with the uneventful opening twenty minutes put aside, RED seems to be betrayed by its poor story all the way. Like in so many action movies being released these days, the action sequences eventually take over, thus making the plot irrelevant. The final scene is the ultimate indicator of an uninspired story, with the opposite sides suddenly managing to strike a deal, reconcile and bring the film to its end just before the two-hour mark.