The Red Trailer: Helen Mirren, Bad Ass

There are a number of reasons why the new trailer for Red -- about a retired CIA agent who calls his old team back together to stop an assassin -- looks derivatively boring, not the least of which being: Didn't Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman already make this movie? It was called Lucky Number Slevin, and it stunk of warmed over Tarantinoisms and madcap violence. Not even wild horses could drag me -- wait, is that Helen Mirren firing a massive machine gun at a moving car? One second, let me click over and pre-order tickets.

Frankly, Red has a cast of actors who, had they appeared independent of each other, would be considered slumming. The aforementioned trio of Willis, Freeman and Mirren aside, Red also features Mary Louise-Parker, Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox, Julian McMahon, James Remar, Ernest Borgnine, Karl Urban and -- in full Burn After Reading mode -- John Malkovich. That they're all here -- starring in what looks like a more violent version of The Losers -- has to perk up your interest immediately.

Of course that's the problem: At best Red feels like a knock-off, Tarantino-esque, comic book movie -- which is probably just another way of saying, "A film by Joe Carnahan" -- but that cast has to mean something. National Treasure: Book of Secrets notwithstanding, would Dame Helen lead us astray? Hopefully not.

VERDICT: Definitely maybe.

[Trailer via Yahoo! Movies]