Red and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Jesse Thompson

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Red: Comparison Essay

            The films Red and It's a Mad Mad Mad World  are both high energy fast paced adventures withs strong  ensemble casts led by great veteran actors.   In It's a Mad Mad Mad World  I really enjoyed the animation in the opening credits, it's fun, goofy and gorgeously simple with excellent motion.  The movie Red I found out was based on a short series of DC comic books. While Red's opening  (or was it ending?) credits had a slight comic feel to them ,  I thought the cinematography for the film was great and their more complex sequences that I think were strung together  to simulate standout single takes while the camera moved through buildings, setting up the environments nicely where the action then takes place mixed with close up zooms of the characters, along with the films exaggerated comedic action elements were great and did remind me of a paneled comic book page or a Looney Toons cartoon.

            But while Red with its cool cast of retired spy characters, bad villains you like to hate and the others caught up in the action,  has pretty good chemistry overall between them that results in decent comedic interactions, it pales in comparison the grand scale of the ridiculous hijinks that ensue and hilariousness of the situations its excellent and very funny cast get themselves into along the nonstop ride that is It's a Mad Mad Mad World.  While we know where we are going to end up under that big W in It's a Mad Mad Mad World, compared to the dangerous journey that Frank Rose and his companions travel to untangle the problem of finding out and dealing with who is trying to fill them, It's a Mad Mad Mad World  is always going and builds up to a big finale payoff by upping its comedy and energy throughout the films progression.  You couldn't ask for anymore from the last lead up and finale of It's a Mad Mad Mad World, when all these characters meet up again and end up on a fire truck ladder suspended several stories above a gathered crowd, clambering over each other to get hold of the small fortune and then just to for their safety's sake, which they had forgotten for rest of the film, and making it rain money over the entire area as a result. Very funny.

            While everyone in Red does a great job with their parts, they could have taken cues from It's a Mad Mad Mad World  on giving it their all and fully committing to the characters to a whole nother level.  I mean if John Malkovich had been allowed really to let loose, he would have just stolen the film, he's that good in a role like that. Both movies are very funny, one is a classic and the other is one of the better films of this year.