Facebook
Twitter
Google
Reddit
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
MySpace
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Digg
CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: Talented Ensemble Wasted on Incredibly Dull ‘Red’
Submitted by BrianTT on October 15, 2010 - 9:54am
Printer-friendly version
E-mail page to friend
PDF version
Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Red” review.
‘Red’ stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban, Mary-Louise Parker, Brian Cox, Julian McMahon, and Richard Dreyfuss. It was written by Jon and Erich Hoeber and directed by Robert Schwentke. It opens on October 15th, 2010. It is rated PG-13.
Red
Photo credit: Summit Pictures
Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version
CHICAGO – They say you can learn as much from a bad movie as you can from a good one. If that’s true, what’s the lesson to be taken from the extremely boring and misguided “Red”? Perhaps that moviemaking is not the sum of its parts and that you can’t just get together an amazing cast, shout action, and expect magic.
 Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
There’s simply no denying that “Red” features a spectacular cast with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, and Mary-Louise Parker, but the caliber of the ensemble almost makes the piece all the more baffling. What did they see in this script? If the film featured a B-level cast and was released straight-to-DVD, no one would give a damn about “Red” but when people this talented get together there’s an expectation of entertainment that this inert comic book adaptation just doesn’t deliver.
| Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Red” in our reviews section. |
The most often-ridiculed genre used to be video-game-to-screen but we’re starting to develop a film festival from Hell of inferior films based on non-superhero comic books. Sliding just barely above the horrendous “The Losers,” “Red” is another graphic-novel adaptation about a group of killing machines fighting the man. But while films like “Watchmen” and “Wanted” sometimes stumbled due to an over-use of style, director Robert Schwentke goes the other way and develops absolutely no personality of its own. Most of the cast sleepwalks through the piece and except for a couple of clever shots that you’ve already seen in the preview, there’s nothing colorful about this mess.
A half-asleep Bruce Willis stars as Frank Morris, a man who used to be one of the world’s deadliest but has been reduced to the boredom of everyday life in suburbia. Frank is so desperate to make a connection that he’s begun flirting with the representative (Mary-Louise Parker) who handles his pension and the two have developed a long-distance relationship of sorts. Before Frank can work up the courage to visit his phone buddy, he’s attacked by a group of masked men trying to kill him.
Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Red” review.Red
Photo credit: Summit Pictures
