Review of Red Dawn (2012) by Michael W — 04 Sep 2013

Simply awful.

Red Dawn stars Chris Hemsworth, and is centred around a city in Washington that awakens to the sight of North Korean troops dropping from the sky. Before they knew it, the citizens of the city were taken prisoners and their town was under new rule. A group of young patriots find a hideout in the surrounding woods and manage to train themselves into a capable group of fighters, using their high school mascot to call themselves the Wolverines, and attempt to win back their freedom and stop the invasion.

Nice to see that Hollywood are now remaking average films as well! Red Dawn offers nothing new and definitely does not improve on the 1984 film which starred Patrick Swayze. You can't help but feel sorry for Chris Hemsworth, who signed on for this film before he had made it into the star he is today with Thor and Avengers. His performance is okay, no damage done to himself, but not enough to save the film from its simply awful acting and story.

My main issue with this film is the lack of identity for the enemy. With only one, Captain Cho (Will Yun Lee), actually getting a name! Furthermore, it seems to me as though it is just a bunch of North Koreans running around doing very little, not even being able to stop a bunch of kids with guns. There is no political reasoning behind the attack from the North Koreans that I can see, and all this does is disengage the audience from the story. There is no way the audience can invest in a true villain if you know nothing of them or their motives.

First time Director Dan Bradley has previously worked as a top stunt coordinator, and you can tell. Red Dawn gets into the action way too quickly, not allowing for any story to development or introduce any significant details and relationships between the characters.

The lack of overall character development completely stops this film from being anything other than woeful.

J.Henderson.

2/10.