I shouldn’t have watched the movie first! I did that with V for Vendetta, and I did it again here. It’s not what you think, though – most people say “The book is MUCH better than the movie”. Of course, I’m not most people. In both cases that I mentioned, I enjoyed the movies immensely, while I found the direction of the books to somewhat lackluster. Again, I’m not sure if it would’ve made any difference in which order I read the book/watched the movie, but I still came away enjoying the movies more. If you’ve ever really wanted to examine the process of how source material gets “Hollywooded” on the way to the theater, you can’t find a better example of that than RED.
I’ll admit that I never had much desire to read RED before I heard there was a movie coming. There had been some buzz when the comic released, mainly due to its creators, Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. I’ve never been a huge fan of either, so the initial release just slipped under my radar. Once the trailers started to hit for the movie, however, I thought it might be worth checking out. I think I would describe the movie as “Grumpier Old Men Meets The A-Team“. It’s got a surprisingly impressive cast, including Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfuss, and John Malkovich. It’s a wildly enjoyable film about retired spies who, when forced out of retirement, prove that they’ve still got it. Oh, and the title? It stands for “Retired Extremely Dangerous”, which is the official status of Bruce Willis’s character, Frank Moses. The movie’s got humor, it was action-packed, and it was a nice little guilty pleasure film. The book, not so much.
RED follows Frank Moses, a former CIA agent who’s trying to get used to living the retired life. Outside of phone calls with his handler, he really doesn’t seem to have much contact with the outside world. Once a new director is appointed to the agency, he discovers Frank’s file and is appalled by all that he learns. After all, the Old CIA got its hands a lot dirtier than it does today, and the director feared what might happen if details of those old missions got out via a FOIA request or something. So, for some reason, he feels the need to order Frank’s assassination. This part was odd to me, as it would probably be easier to just destroy the files. I mean, maybe the director didn’t like knowing such a skilled killer was out in the world, but surely Frank wasn’t the only one, right? Is he just going to start assassinating any former agent with a pension?! Anyway, agents stage an ambush on Frank’s house, but he ends up killing them and going on the run. Up to this point, the movie and book were aligned pretty well, but things were about to get a LOT different.
In the movie, Frank tracks down his handler, played by Mary-Louise Parker. He kinda, sorta abducts her, but she wanted to go, as she was somewhat enamored with his former lifestyle. On the run, they gradually meet up with his old friends and associates, and hilarity ensues. In the book, however, when he meets his handler, he almost kills her. It’s only a last second decision to leave her alive. He gains access to the agency, and the three-issue story ends as he begins a shootout within the CIA.
First off, the book is DARK. There’s no humor, and it’s got little meat to it. Basically, old agent gets mad and then kills those who made him mad. I’ve read Wolverine stories with more depth to them. If anything, the movie could only be said to be inspired by the book. While reading it, you can kind of see how the Hollywood process might take over and stretch things around, and that’s exactly what happened. Because it’s such a short story (three issues), there’s a lot of wiggle room that allows you to expand on parts. As it’s written, RED would’ve made a decent online short for the Warner Bros site or something, but there’s not much for a full film, which is probably by WB passed on the project.
Also, I feel the biggest letdown is the fact that the supporting characters simply don’t exist in the book. Sure, they change the tone of the story, but they also helped to make it much more enjoyable. You know how Ted’s the most boring character in How I Met Your Mother? Well, the same could be said for Frank Moses. The real story is how he’s sort of the eye of this crazy, espionage-filled hurricane – he’s interesting because of the people and circumstances surrounding him. Now, around the release of the movie, DC did release some prequel one-shots focusing on the newly added film characters, but I’m not sure if they were worked into the mythos in an organic way, or if it was merely a cash grab. The bottom line is that they were not part of the original story that served as the inspiration for the film.
So, my final thought? Skip this book. It’s not really worth the money, seeing as how it’s 3 issues and some supplemental stuff. In all honesty, the story felt rushed, like it was going to be cancelled due to low sales or something. It could have easily been 4-6 issues, but I guess Ellis and Hamner felt they had told the story they set out to tell in those three issues that we got. If you want a fully enjoyable experience, loosely based on the RED universe, then hit up Redbox or Netflix for the movie.
I haven’t read Red yet at all; I passed it by in the comic books section at Barnes and Noble a few times, figuring there had to be more to it (cause it was ridiculously thin), so I’d wait until I saw what I figured was the “full set.” I guess that was my bad. Still, I can imagine that the source material would have had to be greatly expanded to fill a movie, which is a strange diversion from the norm. The movie was very enjoyable to me (I did, in fact, use Netflix), and I’d heard the original material was not nearly as fun. Glad I skipped the TPB.
Not fun AT ALL. I think we only got 3 DVDs from Netflix before canceling the account, but I’m glad to say the RED was one of them. Highly enjoyable movie!