Released: November 2012
Director: Dan Bradley
Run Time: 93 Minutes
Rated PG-13
Distributor: MGM Studios
Genre: Action
Cast:
Chris Hemsworth: Jed Eckert
Josh Peck: Matt Eckert
Isabel Lucas: Erica Martin
Josh Hutcherson: Robert Kitner
Adrianne Palicki: Toni Walsh
Will Yun Lee: Captain Cho
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Sgt. Maj. Andrew Tanner
Between the 1950s and 1990, there was always this paranoia about communism. Who is a communist? Who isn’t? It all stemmed from the Soviet Union developing their own nuclear weapons and Joseph McCarthy being a total asshat. The Cold War between Soviet Russia and the United States was always on the threshold of nuclear annihilation. M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction. That was the only thing that kept either side from launching. There’s been a lot of movies since the 50s painting the Russians as the bad guys. For a long time, the James Bond franchise was centered around the idea that the Soviets were…not that great. So, they were often used as antagonists. Even in TV shows like Mission: Impossible. There were two movies that came out during the 80s that really fed into the fear of World War III: The Day After and Red Dawn. While The Day After was about the effects of nuclear war, Red Dawn painted the picture of NATO being disbanded and Russia teaming up with Nicaragua and Cuba to invade the United States. Both were controversial in their own ways. Red Dawn was controversial because a lot of left-wingers felt that it fed into the fantasy of right-wing Second Amendment supporters about defending their own backyard against communist oppression. There was a bit more to it than that, but I’m going to save that for another time. Right now, I want to talk about the 2012 remake of Red Dawn. Oh, dear. Where do I begin with this mess?
Red Dawn stars Chris Hemsworth as Jed Eckert, a former marine who finds himself, along with his teenage brother as the United States comes under attack from North Korea. Banding together with a group of other survivors, Jed and Matt fight back against North Korea as the Wolverines. At the time in 1984, Red Dawn scared the hell out of people. It literally opened with foreign nationals dropping into school yard and shooting up the school. The idea that a foreign power could invade the United States like this was terrifying, even if it really couldn’t happen. But there was a degree of plausibility that it could happen. The original movie had Russians and Cubans teaming up. This remake has North Koreans. Right from the get-go, we’ve got problems here. It’s incredibly unrealistic that North Korea could raise a military of that size and invade. It just can’t happen. They don’t have the resources to launch an invasion of that scale. Secondly, China wouldn’t let it happen, because of the repercussions that would result on their economy. In fact, the original antagonists for this movie WERE the Chinese, but because the studio kind of fell apart, scenes were reshot and CGI was employed to make it look like North Korea. Aside from serious issues with verisimilitude(the appearance of being true or real), this remake misses the point of the original film ENTIRELY. The original film, as it was written and directed by John Milius, was about how young people are affected when they’re thrown into the middle of a full-scale war/invasion. As silly as the premise was in the original film, it was handled fairly realistically. The remake doesn’t even bother with that.
The acting here SUCKS. There’s not one actor that convinces me that they’re in any real danger. Not only that, these kids get really good at handling weapons really quickly. Chris Hemsworth has made a name for himself as an actor in not only Marvel movies, but in comedies, dramas, and horror movies. He’s got charisma that most men would kill for. He doesn’t display any of that here. I get the distinct impression that he was only doing it for the paycheck. Josh Peck, who plays Matt is one of the most irritating characters until he puts his big boy pants on. The original character was played by Charlie Sheen, who was far more convincing in this role than Peck. Will Yun Lee plays the main antagonist, Captain Cho. Boy, you want to talk about a milquetoast villain. He’s not threatening at all, and I like Will Yun Lee as an actor. The only actor that really seems to enjoy his job here is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Andrew Tanner, who is a marine in this movie, instead of an Air Force pilot.
The action in this movie doesn’t make a lot of sense, either. It’s one explosion after another without giving the audience time to breathe. Yeah, some of the explosions are pretty good, but most of the action is hidden by…wait for it…SHAKY-CAM!!!! Seriously, fuck that filming style. I hate it. Even when you CAN see what’s going on, it’s ridiculously generic. The action in the original film was spaced out properly so the audience could react, but we could also see what’s going on. Honestly, it felt like a guerilla war film, because that’s what those characters were, using hit-and-run tactics. Here, not so much. I thought the stormtroopers in Star Wars were bad shots, but the North Koreans here are even worse.
Honestly, I have no idea why Red Dawn needed to be remade. The original film is STILL relevant in today’s world. It’s got better acting, better action, and real character development. It also had a scary antagonist in William Smith, who played the Russian leader. Yet, the original film had audacity to humanize it’s antagonists. These are not your cookie-cutter bad guys. They’re written like human beings. Yeah, they do terrible things, but they’re treated like real people, which makes the idea of war more horrifying. The remake treats war like a video-game. They even compare their experience to Call of Duty, a first-person shooter video-game. So…yeah, this one’s a real stinker. It is no surprise to me that this was the only directing credit for Dan Bradley, who actually stunt-work for better movies. Speaking of better movies, watch the original Red Dawn if you’re so inclined. This was a colossal waste of time, money, and talent.