"RED" - in theaters

I had the pleasure of seeing this movie in a theater that was totally empty save for me. I've never had that happen before, and it was quite exciting. (Pathetic, I know, but it's the little things...)

"RED" stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous, and it's in reference to retired operatives of the CIA, FBI, and pretty much every other government agency that has a black ops division. Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a retired CIA "analyst" (*cough* yeah right *cough*), who is living a quiet life in some nondescript Midwestern town. He spends his days talking to Sarah Ross (Mary Louise Parker) at the pension office in Kansas City where he pretends that he isn't getting his pension checks so he can chat her up. All is going well until one night when a team of agents comes into Frank's house, intent on killing him. Needless to say, that doesn't go over too well, and Frank takes them all out.

Not knowing why he's being hunted, he heads to Kansas City, sort of kidnaps Sarah (because she's being hunted too, even if she doesn't believe him), and then heads to New Orleans to talk to Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman). Joe seems to have his finger on the pulse of what's going on and soon discovers the reason behind all these attacks. In the 1980's there was an operation in Guatemala involving a person high in the government going slightly berserk, and now everyone who helped clean up the mess is getting killed. The reason is because a reporter began to uncover the details behind this operation, including a list of names of the people involved. Needless to say, everyone on that list was dead, save for the few RED members.

Frank and Sarah pick up Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) along the way, as well as enlisting the help of a Russian agent, Ivan (Brian Cox). This motley crew then works to figure out who is trying to kill them and how they're going to stop it. Karl Urban is the guy that's hunting them, and I always enjoy when he shows up in films. I fully support all of the "Lord of the Rings" actors.

This film is ripe with dark humor and subtle romance. You can tell that all of the actors are having a lot of fun. And it's also safe to say that Bruce Willis could still kick your ass, and not in a "Die-Hard" kind of way that's completely ludicrous. Not to mention that Helen Mirren is totally badass when she's shooting a gigantic gun.

So on the CWeave scale, this movie rates a 7.5. It's no Oscar contender, but it's a helluva lot of fun. And it just adds further evidence to the fact that older people are awesome.

"The Last Station" - in theaters

First off, I'd just like to state the obvious: Helen Mirren is a total bad ass.

Now that that's over with, let's get down to the business of talking about "The Last Station". As some may know, it features Oscar nominated performances by both Helen Mirren (best actress) and Christopher Plummer (best supporting actor). Both of these nominations are well-deserved, as the parts were played beautifully.

The movie is about the last year of Leo Tolstoy's (who wrote "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina") life, seen mostly through the eyes of his new secretary, Valentin (played by the always adorable James McAvoy). Helen Mirren plays Tolstoy's wife of 48 years, who disagrees with pretty much everything Tolstoy has come to stand for. This includes the Tolstoyan movement, headed by a well-cast, absolutely revolting Paul Giamatti. It seems his character (Cherkov) wants nothing more than to make Tolstoy into an idol, one which would lead the Russian people into a new state of enlightenment. He also wants Tolstoy to sign a new will, stating that the rights to all of his books are to be given to the Russian people as a gift, making them public domain. This is where Sofya (Mirren) and Cherkov disagree the most, as Sofya only wants to secure the welfare of her family through retaining the rights (and the profits) to Tolstoy's work.

While the bulk of the movie revolves around this argument, there are also a number of small, poignant moments that are littered throughout that tell an even greater story about how love changes our lives. And in the end, that's what Tolstoy wants everyone to know: it's all about love.

The only issue that I had with this film were the accents. Most of the actors didn't even attempt to use a Russian accent. Mirren could have been playing the Queen of England (again) with the lilt she was using. McAvoy and Giamatti tried, but didn't really succeed. I just thought that it was funny that this film was about one of, if not the, greatest Russian author of his time, and no one thought about using his native tongue (or at least the twang that went with it). But as far as issues go, I'll let the language slide, since the rest of the movie was so well done.

At times humorous and heartfelt, sad and infuriating, "The Last Station" was nothing that I expected, and I loved it. So on the CWeave scale, I rate this movie a 9. Close to brilliance, but I gotta knock off a point for the accent thing...