Review of Red Dawn (2012) by Hoops2448 — 22 Apr 2013

Remakes are all the style now as if Hollywood has run out of things to say so here is Red Dawn, a modern day remake of a 70s cold war paranoia picture. Back then the idea Russia could descend the world into darkness was very real and now its the same with North Korea, oh wait, no it isn't.

The film follows a group of survivors of a full scale invasion of suburban America by the North Koreans (I am honestly not joking). This group must band together and start a campaign of guerrilla warfare to take back their neighborhood and their country.

(yet again, I am not joking) I really should have hated Red Dawn more than I eventually did. Don't get me wrong, I still pretty much loathed it. The cast is filled with miscast actors or just plain dreadful ones but it also has a few pretty great ones.

For instance Chris Hemsworth is the right kind of charming/brooding to play former soldier Jed although Josh Peck is just horrendous as his hot headed (which he plays as constipated) brother Matt. Adrianne Palicki seems to be making a thing of the whole action woman thing but has had to wait a good 2 years for her two action films to be released after being held back for years.

However she entertains as tomboy Toni although Isabel Lucas irritates and infuriates as her sister Erica. A pre Hunger Games Josh Hutcherson is in the film but I honestly cannot say anything about him because his presence isn't memorable.

The main problem is that there is a borderline decent film hidden beneath the bad acting and illogical story that was changed as not to irritate the Chinese (the Chinese that were never going to see the film in the first place) as if they hadn't heard of a story before.

The main draw of Red Dawn is the fact it is directed by Dan Bradley, a stunt coordinator who understands what makes good action as he has proven in the Bourne films he has worked on. The action is never short of fantastic from the opening invasion to the final showdown in a taken over police station.

Its visceral and honestly some of my favorite action in a while, its that good. It's shocking that a film with this caliber of effects and stunts is let down by an idiotic plot change late into production and some woefully bad acting.