This movie is awesome. There is nothing about it that is not thoroughly, uncompromisingly enjoyable. The soundtrack is awesome, the source material is awesome, the script is awesome, the direction is awesome, the cast is awesome.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. It’s what The Expendables tried so hard to be and what Killers wishes it was: old school action comedy with big name stars, big laughs and big-ass guns. Never a dull moment, never an eye-rollingly dire attempt at humor, never a questionable performance or ill-conceived action sequence.

Everyone in this cast is truly remarkable in their roles, and I’m not just saying that because I love Bruce Willis with a devotion that keeps Hudson Hawk up there among my favorite movies of all time. Indeed, almost everyone in the cast is a particular darling of mine -- of everyone’s. Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Karl Urban, Mary Louise Parker. They’re all here and all great and, man this is a good movie.

Quite how they got this cool of an action comedy out of Warren Ellis’s original graphic novel is something of a mystery. Also, quite how they got a full-length feature film out of a mere 70 pages of comic is somewhat baffling. But they did it. They made it work. The original Red is much grittier, much more Rated-R-for-adult-themes, but not especially action-y and is more ironically amusing than funny, ha-ha. This movie version is hilarious, which comes from a combination of the actors’ impeccable comic timing and a screenplay that gives Red a kind of a Grosse Point Blank meets Burn Notice feel about it.

This is a very good thing.

So, our story. Frank Moses (Willis) is a retired CIA operative of great cunning and skill. He’s hopelessly devoted to phone-crush Sarah (Parker), but otherwise could not be more bored with civilian life. Luckily for him, a hit squad shows up and wants him dead, at which point he decides to -- in the words of Morgan Freeman’s lascivious Joe -- “get the band back together” and track down those who want him and his former associates put out to pasture for good.

The “band” consists of Frank, Joe, Marvin (Malkovich) and Victoria (Mirren). Together, they take on high-tech assassins left and right and generally pose a much bigger pain in the butt than the bad guys (cliché bad guys, yes, but no less entertaining for all that) had bargained for. Small but pivotal roles are played by Richard Dreyfuss and Ernest Borgnine, and Karl Urban dazzles in a very un-McCoy-like role (which is basically Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive, but with a less confounding accent).

I’d say he stole the movie, except that in this movie, everyone steals it at one point or another. (It’s surprising there’s a movie left.) Willis is his usual wry, wise-cracking, haunted-yet-noble self; Parker is luminous and captivating as the befuddled bureaucratic factotum-cum-love interest; Freeman is creepy and yet endearing; Malkovich is crazed and compelling as only Malkovich can be; and Mirren… oh, Helen Mirren. Watching that classy lady with a high-caliber machine gun in her hands is truly a transformative experience.

So, Red. It won’t be winning any Oscars or breaking any box office records; it’s not technologically impressive or even especially original. But it is an almost perfect example of its genre, and is a very, very fun way to spend both your time and money.

Plus, Bruce Willis! As if you need to know anything else.

  -- Rachel Hyland