Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Up until a few minutes ago I had no idea what Moonrise Kingdom was about, now that I know, this poster is a thing of beauty. However before finding out what the plot was, the poster gave me a slightly creepy vibe, it reminded me of a Todd Solondz movie and we all know those aren't exactly fuzzy and cute.

What does the Moonrise Kingdom one-sheet say to you?

Red **½

Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren
Mary-Louise Parker, Brian Cox, Ernest Borgnine, Karl Urban
Richard Dreyfuss, James Remar

Red has got to be one of the most fortunately cast unfortunate movies ever made. When you got the likes of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren starring in a graphic novel adaptation you expect it to be brilliant or at least guilty pleasure.
The truth is that Red is none, it's more of a by-the-numbers thriller that under-uses its fascinating cast.
Willis stars as Frank Moses, a former black-ops CIA agent who's pulled out of retirement when agency members begin hunting him for a mysterious reason.
All he knows is that whatever's going on has to do with a secret list compiled by a reporter and that he has to keep an eye out to save Sarah (Parker) the phone operator he's developed a crush on.
Trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together he visits old friends including his mentor Joe (Freeman having more fun than he seems to have had in years), paranoid Marvin (a scene stealing Malkovich) and former wetwork agent Victoria (a sexy, luscious Mirren).
The movie then uses them in an assortment of situations that never achieve the kind of twisted lunacy you could get from having Helen Mirren and John Malkovich shoot machine guns together.
For all of its call to insanity and rebellion the film actually plays it very safe. It's always a delight to watch actors at the top of their game and when the veterans surprise you, it's also great to see Urban get some time in the spotlight, his turn as obsessive agent William Cooper is all kinds of wonderful. The one missing link in the cast is Parker who is totally miscast here, her part called for someone who played the part fully and gave herself to the insanity of it all, in the vein of Madeline Kahn in What's Up Doc? while Parker here seems selfconscious.
There's really not much to elaborate on Red without making it sound like it's a movie that should've delivered brilliance and without taking away the few merits it does have.

The Expendables **

Director: Sylvester Stallone
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture
Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke
Steve Austin, David Zayas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis

It's a who's who of the most famous action stars of the past three decades in The Expendables, a movie so peculiar that you know no coherent plot is necessary to make it work.
Sly plays Barney Ross, the leader of a mercenary team that includes the characters played by Li, Statham, Lundgren and Crews. No character description could make justice to the stereotypes each of them are playing but this is supposed to be part of the fun.
The Expendables, as they name themselves, are hired by a mysterious man (Willis) to overthrow the dictator (Zavas) of the fictitious island of Vilena. Without even knowing who they're actually working for, but with the promise of fresh victims to decapitate, mutilate and several other CGI verbs, the team takes on the mission.
From the moment of its conception it was obvious that this movie wasn't meant for everyone, after all even its title makes a mockery out of the entire thing to declare this isn't the kind of movie that will rack up awards or change the face of acting (although Rourke does display some serious acting that somehow feels funny in the context, after all his character is named Tool...)
However what might disappoint some is the fact that for all the trivia, references and plain tackiness that surrounds it, the movie isn't really that much fun.
The dialogues, as terrible as they are, could've been at least quotable. The action sequences, as demented and gratuitous as they are, could've at least tried to allow us to see what was going on (especially when they had acrobats like Statham and Li at their service).
The film takes itself so seriously that it forgets that we are living in an era where postmodernist riffs on B-movies are sometimes considered works of genius (see everything Quentin Tarantino touches) and instead of trying to deliver this, The Expendables settles for being another bad movie like the ones these actors are used to making.
Think of it as an Ocean's Eleven with more face lifts, steroids and no real sense of humor (except for Statham who single handedly uplifts every scene he's in). There's a scene in a church that should've been iconic but results awkward and feels strangely forced.
When it comes down to basics The Expendables isn't bad enough to be good, clever enough to be subversive or even bad enough to be plain bad, in the end it's just what it is.