“Red” has some big names in it such as action star of the 80s Bruce Willis (“Die Hard”) and the new action star on the block, Karl Urban (“The Chronicles of Riddick”). However, when it comes to the script, it disappoints as it feels forced.

In “Red”, Frank Moses (Willis) is a retired C.I.A. agent, who is targeted by his old employers. He is then forced to protect a lady at the pension office he’s been calling, named Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker “Angels In America”). The duo then travels across the country searching for people Frank used to work with. They are all labelled ‘R.E.D.’, which means that they’re retired and extremely dangerous. Now, it’s up to the team to find who is manipulating the system and terminate them.

Bruce Willis is okay as Frank Moses. John Malkovich (“Dangerous Liaisons”) is good as the eccentric fruitcake Martin but unfortunately, his lines are quite frankly awful. Helen Mirren (“Calendar Girls”) is okay as Victoria but again, her lines are awkward. Morgan Freeman is actually good as Joe but unfortunately, he’s very old and so does very little in terms of the action. Karl Urban is forgettable as the C.I.A. agent Cooper. Mary-Louise Parker is unmemorable as Sarah.

Although “Red” is filled with lots of explosive action and espionage, the characters are so uninteresting and the dialog is even worse. As much as I believe people will be amazed and laugh a little at the ridiculously fun action I just think the characters will really let you down. It would have been better if instead of squeezing in mildly amusing references about how old the old actors/actresses are and non-amusing punchlines, you could make this like an 80s action flick and make it so that they’re saying lines that were ‘cool’ in the 80s action movies but come across as silly now.