Red

[Famous Mortimer]

Torrent enthusiasts may have already seen this film. It's actually really rather good.

It's like someone took the central conceit of The Expendables - old actors brought together for one last job, or something - but did it with brains and comedy and fun and an interesting plot and stuff. Oh, and good actors, of course.

Hopefully the big bag of money Warren Ellis will make off this won't go to his head too.

[Mister Six]

Ellis already let a complete lack of editorial control go to his head years ago.

Not sure about this at the minute. It looks like it ought to be great - Helen Mirren with a machine gun! - but a few people whose opinions I usually agree with have likened it to The Losers, saying that it does nothing wrong but it doesn't do a lot right either. I don't want to fork out money for something that's merely mediocre.

[boxofslice]

Having not read the comic/graphic novel on which this is based, I have no idea how close to the original source material this is but the film is terrible.  Bruce Willis as you'd expect basically plays Bruce Willis, Freeman again the wise old hand, Mirren only there so you can see the Dame fire a big gun in an attention grabbing bit of stunt casting, Malkovich gives one of his less impressive wacky performances, Dreyfuss hams it up and Mary Louise Parker is wasted in the love interest role.  The dialogue is cliched and not in that ironic way, the plot makes no sense and the direction predictable and tiresome.  It has the look of a film that was being made 10 years ago so as result feels dated.  Avoid.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've just finished the mini-series now and would be amazed if the film is that similar. Major spoilers:

Spoiler alert

In it, the new director of the CIA is shown a video of a former agent who's described as "The best killer in the world", but it's also hinted that he did many, many terrible things. He's retired now and happy to live out his life alone without any human contact, but the new director is terrified by him and orders his death. It fails, he heads up to the CIA, and kills lots of people. The end. It's smarter than that suggests, and there's a whole subtext about what it means to be a man then and now, but an awful lot of it is Warren Ellis showing of his ability to kill people in inventive ways. I don't know much about the movie, but judging by the fact that Freeman and Mirren are supposed to be his friends who help him take revenge, and there's a love interest in it, it sounds like they've taken an awful lot of liberties with the source material.

[close]

[Mister Six]

It's nothing like the miniseries, apparently. Which is good, because it was made during Ellis's 'I have an idea but only two acts and no plot' period. See also: most of Global Frequency, Mek, etc.

[Famous Mortimer]

I had the plot of the comic told me by the guy who runs Chesterfield's comic shop, and it doesn't really sound like anything all that similar (including the definition of RED, it would seem).

Mixed reception at Chez Mortimer - two thumbs up, one down-ish. Then, I also loved "The Losers", so maybe I'm just a sucker for action movies half-based on comics, or something.

[rupert pupkin]

It's nothing like the miniseries, apparently. Which is good, because it was made during Ellis's 'I have an idea but only two acts and no plot' period. See also: most of Global Frequency, Mek, etc.

If you're talking really shitty Ellis, look no further than Jack Cross. I bet it's only a matter of time before some complete git turns that into a film, too.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Helen Mirren with a machine gun!

Why hasn't that happened before?

If it's not at least an hour's worth of her walking around with a machine gun in a furry coat pouting I will be disappointed.

[small_world]

Pretty rubbish.
Fairly slow paced meandering plot, especially given the set-up. It could have really done a lot more.
Although, it contains my favourite ever "getting out of a car" moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iohP_K29WQ
I fucking loved that.

[Ignatius_S]

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[SavageHedgehog]

It was pretty entertaining, but it did get bogged down with exposition and plot semi-twists near the end. And Freeman has been phoning it in an awful lot recently IMO.