Review of Red Dawn (2012) by Harry W — 22 Feb 2015

Red Dawn is a film I was hesitant to see: this is because the original was such an awesome and badass movie which left me with the ambitions of wanting to be a Wolverine, and it capitalized on the fears of the effects the Cold War could have on people. Now in an attempt to capitalise on the fears of North Korea's initiation of a potential nuclear war, the remake of Red Dawn follows the exact same theme but ignores the fact that the massive increase in security and military funding has kept America protected from and prepared for a situation like this. The Red Dawn remake ignores logic, in the sense that it makes an awesome yet implausible story less realistic or possible, and wastes $65 million doing it when the original was fine with a meager $4.2 million. And like most remakes, it ignored the logic that it didn't need to be remade. It has no chance of comparing to the original, and can not be considered any kind of breakthrough in any manner. As much as I loved the genre I dub "Teenagers vs. Terrorists" as it features the original Red Dawn and two films I seem the greatest of all time, Toy Soldiers and Tomorrow, When the War Began, I was not prepared to enjoy Red Dawn, but I hoped it could at least be a good action film.

Red Dawn first makes the mistake of bothering to create identities to the characters. In the original Red Dawn, the action happened practically half a minute in and we took no time to bother about the unnecessary understanding of the patriots that began the fight. It went straight into shooting and racing to the mountains, and that's what made it great. With the Red Dawn remake, Jed Eckert is learnt to be a marine. I don't give a f*ck what he is, because in the original he was a young American with nothing but his name, his brother, and his weapons. Red Dawn seems like it attempts to give depth into one of the shallowest action films ever made, and it ignores that the shallowness made the original such an awesome film, because it was solid action with badass characters that we cared about because of what they stood for, not who they were. And the original dove straight into intensity and an extremely thrilling atmosphere which it succeeded in holding for the entire film, from start to finish. The Red Dawn remake wastes 10 minutes on thoughtless characterizing, which becomes its first downfall and first sign of negativity. It happens predominantly in the first 30 minutes in which there are very few action sequences, and that renders it wasteful.

Also, the cast just doesn't seem patriotic enough. Although Chris Hemsworth is the only actor to breath any life into all the characters even against a terrible script and forced attempts to give him death at the hands of director Dan Bradley, the rest of the cast falls flat, which is sad considering it features Josh Hutcherson failing to scream the iconic line "Wolverines!" with any real passion of feel that it isn't forced, and Josh Peck looking like he is completely stoned the entire time. And the rest don't do jack sh*t either, and essentially symbolize the lack of talent amongst today's young actors. Red Dawn is something none of them should put on their resumes unless expecting a life of direct-to-DVD action films of Ray Liotta standards. Predominantly, the problem is that they lack the savage patriotism if the original cast, who were all do being on protecting their country instead of protecting themselves that they were the perfectly influential figures for the youth of America. They were the voice of America's sons, and they were so badass that to watch any of them die was just painful. There's no way to really connect to the figures in this remake.

The pacing of the story takes a transition from the boring dramatic set up to the moving action through a narrated training montage, and this is against the real meaning of the film. Suddenly the action is moving, and since we haven't been given time to comprehend it or embrace the rush, it just feels unnatural.

Plus, in the story the wolverines make their first kill before they hunt the deer, and that dissolves the entire f*cking war theme in the first place. The theme that was covered in the Best Picture winning masterpiece The Deer Hunter is about being able to take approaches to killing a human after killing a deer, and then attempting to go back to deer hunting. And in the original Red Dawn, the deer was the first kill of the Wolverines before they began their attacks, and when C. Thomas Howell's character Robert Morris drank "the spirit of the deer", it was declared something would change in him. Writers Jeremy Passmore and Carl Ellsworth decided to turn that all into a f*cking joke, and its insulting. The script as a whole is insulting, and pays no homage to the patriotism such a film would require and that John Millius' original succeeded at so awesomely. Jeremy Passmore and Carl Ellsworth have no understanding of what made Red Dawn important in 1984, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had never seen the original. But what's funny is that the script was barely necessary in the original, because it just flowed so naturally,.

Dan Bradley is at the heart of all the failure in Red Dawn, because he could have made it a decent film if it wasn't a remake of cult classic action thriller. But seeing as his career has been as nothing but stunt coordination and second-unit directing in the past, maybe he should stick to that. He is inexperienced and bereft of skill as a director, but the action isn't anything to complain about. Although its somewhat rushed in editing for very brief parts in the movie, it is predominantly good. Considering today's standards especially, its really good. It should have been used a lot more though because then it could have been a greater distraction from the incompetent writing.

But the good action aside, the Red Dawn remake is largely disgraceful and bereft of the thrills which made its original such an appealing groundbreaking recruitment film.