Movie Review: Red

Gray-Haired Black Ops
Red shows the AARP can kiss kiss, bang bang

Wry sense-of-humor, sly sexuality, potent and visually stimulating violence? Oh, Ernest Borgnine, is there anything you can’t do?

Okay, fine, although the 93-year-old gap-toothed thespian pops up infrequently in Red, a film for which all those previous descriptors do actually apply, his inclusion is a metaphor for the inexplicably kinda-awesome ha-ha/bang-bang extravaganza as a whole. Populated with a cast familiar with a time when ensemble was king, oozing charisma from their aged pores, Red is the anti-Social Network: The script is meh, the concept is as haggard as the lead actor. This proves once more that although words are king, actors can be gods.

Let’s start at the top. Bruce Willis, fresh off not appearing to have aged in more than a decade, is Frank Moses, a retired C.I.A. black ops agent currently bored out of his gourd and obsessing over Sarah (Mary Louise Parker), the lady who answers his phone calls regarding his pension. Just as Frank is about to launch “Operation Get Me Some,” he is ambushed by a squad of assassins. Frank nabs Sarah both for her own protection and because he never abandons an operation and begins searching for answers.

Frank’s first stop is to a nursing home to talk with 84-year-old former-spy-turned-stage-4-liver-cancer-patient Joe (Morgan Freeman), who can still kill you with a Bic pen. Joe gives Frank a list of names that leads him to Marvin (John Malkovich), a retired operative whose drug-addled brain should be a wake-up call to current real-life starlets. Constantly pursued by good-guy-conned-into-doing-bad-things, Agent William Cooper (Karl Urban), Frank also enlists the aid of a wily Russian (Brian Cox) and a slinky silver-haired sniper (Helen Mirren) before embarking on a rather ambitious final gambit filed under “only in implausible movies.”

That implausibility is actually the best thing that screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber culled from the source material, a graphic novel (the politically correct term these days for a comic book) by Warren Ellis. Although we are all willing to believe Willis will be a physical marvel capable of death dealing throughout his Depends era, Red is one of those stupidly awesome flicks that also sees no need to capitulate to the laws of physics or reasonable decision making. It’s a “domino movie,” where each tiny plot point limply falls into the next one: it’s only fun when viewed as a whole.

Thankfully, Robert Schwentke was thinking big picture with his treatment of his uber-cast, with loosey-goosey directing that acknowledged the biggest weapon in the film was the collective nuclear bomb of charm. Try not to have fun while Willis and Malkovich are hamming it up, or when Mirren and Cox are gettin’ their dirty flirty on. Even Urban, by far the spring chicken in this out-to-pasture collective, delivers the goods, notably in a wicked fight scene with his elder, Willis.

With a dose of noninventive but still giddy-goofy-fun visual shoot-em-up and a heaping helping of old-school actor elbow grease, Red is a surprising nugget of entertainment. It will be quickly forgotten, but as the cast knows, memory isn’t everything…they just can’t remember what is.

Grade = B

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Mark Millar is a lying liar and other things that curdle my milk

About a week ago, I told you that Angelina Jolie was dumping Wanted 2 like a long-time girlfriend dumps her loser, go-nowhere boyfriend who has been mistreating her for years and years after she one day realizes that there's a line of better men standing at her door with money, positive healthy affection, and true love. Of course, I also told you that the jilted ex, comic writer and professional liar Mark Millar, would....well, let's look at EXACTLY what I said he'd say. If we set the DeLorean to February 26, 2010 (or, you know, click here), you can see me say the following: "I GUARANTEE you that Mark Millar, who wrote the original comic, is going to come out and state that the sequel is ON, he wrote the shit out of it, it's going to star some super-secret-mega-star, and be directed by Jesus. Millar is a liar." Well, click here to watch Millar open his lie hole and force a whole lot more lies out of it about the sequel still being on. (A) Nobody is clamoring for this sequel. Nobody even knows why you would have this sequel. No storylines were left out there to explore, no characters were all that compelling, and the only things that made it interesting were Jolie's butt and director Timur Bekmambetov's visuals, neither of whom will be back. (B) Everyone in the world has forgotten about Wanted except the guy who wrote it, so shut it doucheburger. (C) There will not be a sequel to Wanted just because you say there will be. If that shit worked, you'd be writing the Superman movie instead of talking up a nonexistent sequel, asshat.

This may sound angry...and you know what, I kind of am today. Why? Well, I won't bore you with personal details, so let's talk about a semi-professional one (professional meaning entertainment-related) I finished Season 5 of "Weeds" last night. So, basically, I'm pissed for having wasted 7.5 hours of my life on what is the poorest excuse for a season of television I may have ever watched. Characters I love, dearly love, behaved like idiotic cartoons and tread water for 13 whole episodes. I shit you not, this entire season could have been skipped over with a "one year later" card without losing an iota of significance. I won't spoil things but sweet tap-dancing Betty White this was a piece of shit season. They pissed on great actors and actresses and made them dance like pathetic clowns. If I had read the scripts, I likely would have just quit if I were them. Anyway, this is part of the reason I want to punch Mark Millar in his stupid lie hole. What can I say? I'm a dumpster full of drop kicks, you knew this going in.

Ryan's Junk Drawer

I like this image because it's kind of creepy. This guy apparently keeps a mouse tail, a tube of what appears to be "love rocket lightning," a screw, Canadian money, and a snakeskin in his junk drawer. Creepier still, I got this from "Highlights" magazine. There was a poem that went with it, but any poem that doesn't have a line ending with "izzle" is dead to me (unless it's written in haiku form, which we all know to be the superior poetic formula). I'm going to use this image to introduce my junk (the top 5 non-big stories of the week) until I'm legally forced to stop.

Here's the top 5 non-big stories (aka, MY JUNK!)

1.) Red just got red hot - Why do I follow phenomenal comic writer @warrenellis on twitter? I don't know, because he delivers tweets like this: "I have 149,935 followers. The 150,000th must kill someone of my choosing or I will murder their family." That's good stuff. Ellis writes a shitpile of comics, some very good, some just weird. "Red" is one I haven't...ahem...READ yet, but I fully intend to. Back in April, Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis were joined in this tale of a CIA operative who is "too old for this shit," quits, and of course "knows too much" and thus gets people trying to kill him. Willis is the old CIA man, Freeman is presumably the bad guy, Helen Mirren has just joined (fingers crossed as the sexy-time love interest...I kid...unless you're into that), and the real exciting news just dropped this week. Apparently, John C. Reilly has joined up...and Willis got his real love interest (no, not Reilly...unless you're into that): this gal.

There were any number of photos of the lovely miss Mary Louise Parker that I could have chosen from in various states of undress, but I think this best proves why she must have made a deal with the devil to be so thoroughly beguiling at 45. LOOK AT THAT WOMAN. The beauty is she's somewhat age-appropriate for Willis's character BUT she still looks like a young hottie, so it satisfies Hollywood's hatred for aged women (other than Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, and Meryl Streep). Spy movie? Written by a comic nerd? With John C. Reilly? AND Mary Louise Parker? Red just shot to the top of my hominhominahomina-gots-to-see-this-NOW list.

2.) So, you're saying you think a Depp/Jolie movie will make money? - I have always admired Johnny Depp for not taking the easy way out. After his "21 Jump Street" introduction, he quickly went batshit insane, taking on roles in a John Waters movie and becoming Tim Burton's muse. Until Pirates, he was a leading man without a signature role or huge franchise hit. I didn't mind that Pirates became all PIRATES but now it looks like he's gotten a taste of the big-time bug and doesn't want to let go. According to Variety, Depp will be taking over for Sam "How the f**k did I get famous" Worthington in The Tourist, a movie about an average tourist who gets convinced to help the government track down an ex who is a major criminal...the criminal in this case being Jolie. It kind of sounds like every other Angelina Jolie movie, and Depp will probably want to play the tourist with a prosthetic leg and a lisp, but to be honest it sounds so commercial I'm shocked Depp is involved. I really hope we aren't losing one of the good ones to the path of least resistance. Also, to show I'm an equal time fella, here's a picture of Johnny Depp (albeit one in which he looks like the guy working at Starbucks who will give you your goddamn latte but resent you whilst doing it).

3.) Direct-to-TV sequel? - I kind of want to see 2012. I know it's going to be total crap story-wise, but you're talking to one half of a husband and wife team who have viewed The Day After Tomorrow about 3 times on FX after seeing it in the theater and not liking it. I haven't truly enjoyed the movie during any of my 4-5 times watching it...so that must say something about crapmaster Roland Emmerich's ability to make watchable bullshit (and about my wife's and my obsession about apocalyptic disasters). Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Emmerich is pimping "2013," a TV series that would be set after the events of 2012. I know, you were hoping for a series that explored what happened if you added 113 to 1900, but you'll have to wait. Sure, this kind of reveals that the Earth doesn't implode in 2012, but so long as it doesn't end with John Cusack facing down some of the worst computer-generated wolves of all time like Day After Tomorrow, I'm okay knowing that humanity survives. Again, I'm torn. I know that Emmerich makes crap, but I watched every episode of the poorly acted "Jericho" because I was so obsessed with post-apocalyptic scenarios. Damn you, Emmerich for putting me in this position. And now, to make myself feel better (and because I mentioned John Cusack above), here's a squirrel holding an invisible boombox above his head.

4.) Angelina Jolie tastes like familiar Salt - I like that we have a female action star, I just kind of wish it wasn't Angelina Jolie. First off, I don't buy that she's able to fling her 87-pound body around with any force. "Oh no, she hit me with all the inertia of a wet noodle." I mean, when Jennifer Garner was throwin' 'bows in "Alias," I bought it. Jolie, not so much. Plus, all of her stuff is starting to look the same. Watch the trailer for Salt, which was rewritten by Kurt Wimmer (the guy who rocked Equilibrium and then farted out Ultraviolet), and tell me it doesn't look exactly like Wanted and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie's a good actress...so maybe more of the acting should happen now.



5.) Dick Cheney's dream of a white Middle East is realized! - I don't know why no one is able to find a single Middle Eastern actor or actress to appear in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I also don't know why the first movie in a potential series can't just be titled Prince of Persia. Why we're at it, I don't know why Jake Gyllenhaal has a British accent for his role as a Persian prince...or why Gemma Arterton (who is totally hotsies, don't get me wrong) is the female lead when there are plenty of beautiful Middle Eastern ladies available...or why Ben Kingsley is the bad Persian guy...or why this trailer confuses me so much when I played the entire game it's based on...or why they decided to give Arterton, who nobody knows, the entire voiceover for the trailer...and why SHE speaks in a British accent. So, this appears to be a movie in which white people pretend to be Persian and a lot of computer effects happen. I want this to be fun but boy does it look like a hot white-Persian mess right now.