Red Dawn

Posted in movies by - December 10, 2012
Red Dawn

The original ‘Red Dawn’ is quintessential ‘good garbage’. It’s fun, it’s ridiculous, and it leaves your mind as gently as it entered. Immediately.

The new ‘Red Dawn’ is a lesser film on almost every count, and being less than an 80’s Swayze/Sheen vehicle is saying something.

The plot hasn’t changed much, and those few changes are to the film’s detriment. America is under siege. In the 80s it was the USSR (natch) and Cuba (?!), but in 2012 it’s somehow mostly North Korea and Russia. Rumors abound that the imaginary enemy was supposed to be China and the suits got cold feet. Imagining that modern-day Russia and tiny North Korea were prepared to launch a land war in the US tested the outer limit of my suspension of disbelief. A bunch of disaffected youths are forced by circumstance and plot contrivance to mount a ragtag resistance. In the 80s it was Swayze and Sheen, this year we get Thor and some odd-looking kid who better not but this performance in his sizzle reel.

So what I’m saying, I suppose, is that it’s kinda crap. The shaky-cam is genuinely disorienting sometimes. The performances are wooden when they’re not embarrassingly florid. No one was crying out for a remake.

Despite all that, I really enjoyed myself. A movie about highschoolers defeating a trained army is allowed to be dumb, and the premise has a goofy magic that hits me where ‘Rocky’ movies hit 15 year old boys. It’s a fun scenario to bat around. It’s fun to imagine you and your dumb buddies forced to become the Dirty Dozen overnight. It made me want to watch the original again, and it provided enough spills and thrills to take my mind of the most glaring shortcomings. It’s not going on my 10 best list, but it was a fun night at the movies.

This post was written by MisterDee

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