Customer Reviews

Red

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I got this book after I saw the trailer and naturally expected something different then what I ended up getting. It's a great read, short and to the point. If you're getting this because of the movie, then you might want to know it's about only one character, namely Bruce Willis' and there's not really an ounce of humor in the whole thing.The art is crisp, the fight scenes brutal and the storytelling is swift and on right on the money for a tale like this. It's bleak and gritty like you would expect from Warren Elli, so good news if you want to pick it up because you're a fan of him. I recommend getting it even if it is a bit short, you won't be disappointed.

This one grabs you by the lapels. There is relatively little exposition here, just straight story. And the action? It his hurled at you in a visually arresting way, with hard and fast pacing. And boy, it is almost shockingly violent (this one is not for the kiddies). It will be interesting to see how they expand the relatively sparse story for the upcoming Bruce Willis - Helen Mirren - Morgan Freeman film.

This is a great comic book. If you saw the movie and want to read the comic, be aware, this comic tells a story slightly similar to the movie but amazingly different in its structure. You have the ex-CIA being chased and its vendetta against the company, that's all.

The tale told here is amazing, is a story about a man that had only one purpose when active and after the retirement wanted to be left alone, that's all. You understand his morals, his trainning and his mind. It's more about the psychological state of someone that killed all his life than the killings or the vendetta.

It is a great comic book, amazing writing and drawing, and something that should be read by everyone who's interested in comics.

But it's not the movie, not at all.

Red is a short story about Paul Moses, a retired CIA assassin who is reactivated after a new CIA director sees what he's capable of and wants him killed.

Red is a well-written, well-drawn story dealing with the over-reactive and spoiled attitude of bureaucrats in today's government. It works well as an action-thriller about twisted bureaucrats getting their just desserts. It felt too short and there were a lot of things that could have been expanded which, while great for the movie adaptation, is a detriment to the original comic.

I bought this book because I loved the movie that came out last year starring Bruce Willis. I always thought that if the movie was good the media it was based on would be even better. Not this time. While the movie has many Retired Extremely Dangerous people that worked lovely together, this comic only deals with the main character and how some CIA official wants him dead.

Overall, the book was ok if you like violence and super assassins but don't expect the fun time that the movie gives us.

This is a short book by most standards but it was a fun read and the action is quick.

What you find here is action and a bit of thinking with what it means to kill for a country. This is not a deep look into the discussion but it might get a person started thinking about it. I found the brief talk about his job to be very interesting and wondered what exactly happened before his retirement.

You do not get a good back ground on all the characters since there is little room to develop them in the book but you get a good frame of mind about why the main people do what they do. There is not a deep story here and I have not seen the movie but the movie shows a strong amount of comedy which this book does not have.

Anyone complaining with 1-star that this book isn't Red (Special Edition) with Bruce Willis is clearly not meant to read comic books... For starters, the description says it all.

"A stark tale of revenge." Nothing about that sounds like a goofy, slapstick, black humor, retired-assassin ensemble-comedy!! Next you'll complain that Wanted by Mark Millar was HORRIBLE because it contained super heroes/villains, and didn't have a magic textile thread-weaving death machine...

Please, if you're unhappy with this book: RETURN IT... use the money to buy a clue.

A retired CIA operative called Paul Moses is suddenly being targeted by a new CIA director for the things he did in his past. He suddenly finds himself fending off assassins as he goes from retired (Green) to active (Red).

The fantastic Warren Ellis does a tremendous job of writing an enthralling revenge tale. Moses shows that despite being old that he is far from useless as he kills his way to the top to take down the CIA Director who ordered his retirement be called off.

It's a very short read as it was only a 3 issue run originally but even so you can see why Hollywood read it and thought there was a film there. In the book it's just one retired hitman Paul Moses (Bruce Willis in the film) but in the movie there's a whole team. The book does a far more compelling job of telling the revenge story and does it in style with Cully Hamner's excellent art. With Hamner's work you feel the bullet snap back the head as it hits, his work is tremendous.

A great comic book from Ellis and Hamner and a great read. Better than the film and one of Ellis' best, highly recommended.

I'll start this review by saying that I've see the movie adaptation of Warren Ellis's RED, and I loved it. And because I saw the movie, I thought I'd check out the graphic novel on which it is based. So I came into this book biased from the start. I'll begin by reviewing the graphic novel, and then I'll compare the novel and the movie.

RED's premise is simple. The new director of the CIA finds out about some dirty deal that a retired agent, Paul Moses, was involved in. He decides the man knows too much, so has him killed. Problem is, Paul Moses still has his moves, and kills the men sent to kill him. Moses is angry with the CIA, so goes on a rampage to try and kill everyone in the CIA who knows his name.

That's all. There are no subplots, no other characters--just Moses and a couple of CIA guys, and the myriad of agents Moses kills in as bloody a way as possible. That's what made me dislike RED so much. The lack of plot and characterization. Paul Moses was just a killing machine who did nothing but kill, which added nothing to his character. Toward the end, it seemed like Ellis tried to throw in a slight attempt to bring the plot to somewhat of a resolution and a measly effort to tie some loose character ends into a conclusion, but what it turned out to be was a mess of random ideas that didn't make any sense in the context of what already happened.

So, in the end, RED was nothing more than an excuse to make a killing machine brutalize the pages with splashes of mindless gore and violence to the end of shallow to no character development and lack of plot and just generally good storytelling.

The movie, on the other hand, brought out all of the potentially brilliant elements of the graphic novel and created an amazing story brought together by a plethora of fantastically cast actors to play characters that not only added wonderful touches to the movie, but supported the entire movie just by being there.

The movie had everything that the graphic novel should have had.

If the graphic novel had taken the time to pace itself and to at least create believable and likable characters, it could have achieved something worthy enough to say that the movie RED was based off it.

A huge disappointment.

Very short, economical read, but also pretty entertaining. Typical Warren Ellis, heavy on the "awful things done in the name of freedom, on behalf of the government." The highlight is Cully Hamner's outstanding illustration.