Red

Gathering a big handful of ageing stars has become a Hollywood fad. When the ensembles seem to be having fun working together, they are fun to watch, as in The Expendables and Red, an action-adventure dramatising a 3-volume DC Comics series.

Plumping for comedy rather than the original comic-books' gory violence, the screenplay-wrights (Erich and Jon Hoeber) had learned from experience. Their adaptation of comic-book Whiteout, starring Kate Beckinsale in Antarctica, bombed spectacularly. Working for Wes Craven on a dramatisation of Alice, a successful computer game, the Hoeber brothers saw the project flip-flop between studios and end up on a shelf. Their first and only other feature, Montana, had been a comedy-thriller starring Kyra Sedgwick and Stanley Tucci back in 1998. Red has saved their joint career, its global box-office gross almost tripling its US$58 million budget and prompting Hollywood buzz for a sequel.

The comic-book author's concept had supposed that a Retired, Extremely Dangerous (RED) CIA officer had needed to gather old comrades together to solve murders and save his own life. Bruce Willis was available and willing, and the project also appealed to Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich (paranoid operative, of course), Helen Mirren (MI6), Brian Cox (KGB) and Ernest Borgnine (CIA archivist). Richard Dreyfuss signed on too (arms dealer) and Willis's love interest (his pensions office contact) and amateur sleuthing buddy was an ideal comic role for bubbly Mary-Louise Parker. One youngster (not yet 40) got a chance to prove his worth: Kiwi Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Star Trek remake, Bourne Supremacy) brought depth to the formulaic role of the CIA hot shot gunning for Willis.

They all clearly had great fun making the enjoyably silly caper, which was well paced by German director Robert (Tattoo, Flightplan) Schwentke, whose previous Hollywood effort, The Time Traveler's Wife, had been a chick-flicky box-office success booed by most critics. I expected little and was pleasantly surprised; that's good enough for a Hollywood product.