Red: Fun for all ages.

Ex black - ops CIA agent Frank Moses has settled into retirement and finds it to be less than what he expected. That all changes when assassins try to kill him and Sarah, the woman he loves. In order to settle the score and figure out the reasons why he is being targeted, Frank reassembles his old black ops team and they get back to work.

The best part of the film was watching a group of supremely talented actors take what could have been a very pedestrian action comedy and turn it into a breezy, enjoyable and ultimately satisfying movie experience. John Malkovich was convincing and hilarious as the paranoid/crazy Marvin, Helen Mirren changed it up and played the 50 cal machine gun blasting badass Victoria, Mary Louise Parker was delightful as Sarah, the “desperately seeking excitement” muse to Frank (played by Bruce Willis). Willis’ performance in particular stood out for he brought an emotional depth to Frank which most of his recent action roles have been missing. The story chugged along, minus a few dull spots here and there, at an agreeable pace and succeeded in either keeping the audience entranced with stylish action sequences or chuckling with delight at the antics of the Retired Extremely Dangerous agents.

Not as hardcore in tone and action as The A-Team or outlandishly ridiculous as Salt, Red found a good balance of both gun play and one liners to make the two hours the audience spent with it a fun time.

Grade: B

Jonah Hex: As bad as the scar on his face

Former Confederate soldier turned bounty hunter Jonah Hex is a scarred man, not only physically but mentally as well. He is haunted by the memories of his murdered family and the man who killed them (a guy named Turnbull). When the Union Army ask Hex to hunt down Turnbull, he jumps at the chance for revenge.

You feel bad for Josh Brolin (a good actor in his own right), because he was given so little to work with script and story wise. He tried to make Hex a likeable (or as likeable as a bounty hunter could be) character but the lack of a cohesive story and total absence of character development truncated that and the audience was never given the chance to start to root for him in his quest for vengeance. Not only was the story sloppily hacked together from the remnants of other comic book film adaptations but the action was lacking, which made the running time of about an hour and fifteen minutes feel like an eternity. And what of the other major actors in the film, could they save it mediocrity? Sadly not, John Malkovich had it on cruise control as the baddie Turnbull, Will Arnett was on the screen for only about two seconds and Megan Fox showed why people should start thinking that Michael Bay was a genius for firing her from Transformers 3.

Hollywood has once again succeeded in turning a very cool anti-hero from the comic book world into a clichéd, one-liner saying joke of a character. Jonah Hex is an awful mess.

Grade: D-