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 Time Traveler's Wife **1/2

Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams
Ron Livingston, Arliss Howard, Jane McLean, Stephen Tobolowsky

Physics usually makes high school students weep, but the theory behind "The Time Traveler's Wife" is that the lack of physics can also make one shed a tear.
Adapted from the bestseller by Audrey Niffenegger it deals with the doomed romance between, artist, Clare (McAdams) and Henry (Bana) who's a time traveler.
Suffering from an uncontrollable genetic disorder that causes his cells to travel through time, Henry suddenly vanishes and appears naked (his clothes can't travel, something that might inspire jokes about his "Hulk" pants) in a random place and year.
During one of these travels he meets six year old Clare who falls in love with him even though when they meet chronologically years later he has no idea who she is.
It was another version of him who met her. This peculiarity is one of the film's most used dramatic triggers as future Henry comes with warnings and past Henry comes with the looks and tight butt.
When he eventually marries Claire (no spoilers, it's in the title...) present Henry disappears, only to have future Henry-complete with grey hair-save the day and cause his friend Gomez (a pretty annoying Livingston) to say he looks like his grandfather.
Truth is he doesn't, in fact if it wasn't for the dialogues you would never know what Henry is coming from what time frame. This is because the movie desperately needs to be pretty.
It disregards things that might seem too pessimist, like coherent scientific theories to back it up for starters, and dedicates itself to the beauty of its lead stars and all the tearjerking potential it has within.
Therefore we are supposed to be pissed when Henry misses Christmas and sob a little when Clare discovers he might inherit his condition to their children.
The plot doesn't care to discuss more serious matters like the creepy fact that Henry flirts with a six year old or that nobody seems to be surprised by the time traveling five minutes after meeting him.
But who has time for this when there's McAdams looking so luminous or Bana so mischievously hunky?
McAdams makes Clare someone we can root for, but never get to feel involved with, yet the spark in her eyes whenever she sees Henry is enough to forgive her flaws.
Bana gives an amazing performance that often overcomes the plot's limitations. He embodies loneliness with heartbreaking resignation, every time he travels there is a sense of loss in his eyes that says more than any of the trite lines he's given.
Watching the two of them suffer over things that defy the slightest logic it's impossible not to feel guilty about being moved by things so obviously designed to stir up emotion.
The film may not be good, but it knows what it's doing and sticks to the knowledge that the idea of separate lovers will only make the ones in the movie theater snuggle closer.