RED | What to Watch

Bruce Willis stars as a retired CIA assassin whose old life comes back to haunt him when he's targeted by a hit squad

Bruce Willis stars as a retired CIA assassin whose old life comes back to haunt him when he's targeted by a hit squad.

Forced to go on the run, he takes pensions officer Mary-Louise Parker with him and re-assembles his old team – Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman – to protect Parker and himself and find out who wants to kill him.

Though the script could be cleverer and wittier, and there are lame and derivative scenes that drag it down, this movie, based on a comic-book, gets away with it all by being constantly funny and packed with non-stop action, huge explosions and hectic mayhem – all eye-catchingly staged.

But it would be nothing without the cast. Smirking for America, Willis proves he still has it, Parker is a perfect foil, Karl Urban adds youth and knockout kickass as a dogged CIA agent, while gung-ho Mirren, Malkovich and Morgan gleefully enter into the spirit of it – and there's even space for Ernest Borgnine.