The air feels a little crisp for a pure-popcorn summer action flick, so it’d be easy to assume that Red is being released as an afterthought because it’s just not that good. That’s hardly the case. In a year filled with an unusually high ratio of disappointing blockbuster fare — even by the modest standards of escapist entertainment — this would have been a welcome addition to the July/August calendar.

Perhaps the studio was confused by all the people in the cast with Academy Award wins and nominations. This is an impressive ensemble for such a slight movie, but in a story so weightless, it might just float away without these performances to keep it grounded. Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber take the basic premise of Warren Ellis’ graphic novel — a retired C.I.A. agent on the run from an assassination plot initiated by his former employers — and infuse it with plenty of laugh lines and sight gags. A lot more humor, in fact, than the much more serious-minded source material, which may be a problem for any comic book purists who were hoping for something approximating a faithful adaptation.

Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a recently retired field agent, who now putters around his house, going through a mind-numbing and lonely daily routine. He tears up his pension checks just to give himself an excuse to phone a Kansas City call center to request a replacement. He always manages to get himself forwarded to the same operator (Mary-Louise Parker), and one of his few pleasures in life seems to be a few minutes of conversation with this sympathetic voice. Unfortunately, the calls are being monitored, and when he’s labeled “R.E.D.” (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) by the Agency and they put out a hit on him, she’s in just as much danger as he is. When he shows up at her apartment unannounced, he has to kidnap her just to protect her. Cue the start of a madcap road movie, as the pair head out on the lam, gathering information on why Moses has been targeted and seeking help from other retired operatives.