Review: Red Dawn (2012)

When North Korea (led by Will Yun Lee) appears to invade the American Northwest, returning US Marine Chris Hemsworth hides out in the woods with his estranged brother Josh Peck and several others (Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, and Connor Cruise among them). With their hometown taken over the group rebrand themselves ‘The Wolverines’, and trained by Hemsworth, decide to take the fight to the Koreans. Isabel Lucas plays Peck’s girlfriend, who isn’t able to be rescued before they head into the woods, leaving her status unknown. Brett Cullen is the father of Hemsworth and Peck, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays a real military guy the kids run into whilst in the woods.

 

The world didn’t need the right-wing, reactionary juvenile action pic “Red Dawn” when it was first made in 1984, and the world doesn’t need this good-looking but bland remake, filmed in 2009 but not released until 2012. Directed by debutant Dan Bradley (a stunt co-ordinator by trade), it doesn’t offer anything the original didn’t provide, except that one had genuine star power (Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and then-popular stars like Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey, and C. Thomas Howell), and the basic story was already recently told with the bizarrely titled Australian film “Tomorrow When the War Began”. It’s hard to get into a story you’ve seen twice before, and it wasn’t much chop either of those times. In fact, whilst this one’s livelier than “TWTWB”, I think the original “Red Dawn” probably stands slightly ahead at the end of the day.

 

The dialogue is putrid here, especially Chris Hemsworth’s supposedly profound speeches. He’s a one-note actor at the best of times, but is even less than that here. His former “Home and Away” co-star (and real-life ex-girlfriend) Isabel Lucas is her usual horrible self, but thankfully barely in the film. Two terrible former “Home and Away” actors sharing major screen time here would’ve been unbearable.

 

The best of the young actors by far is Josh Peck, who now looks alarmingly like a young Patrick Dempsey (Am I the only one?). Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a perfectly acceptable replacement for Powers Boothe (Brett Cullen ain’t no Harry Dean Stanton, though), and although improbable and on the nose, the action is occasionally exciting and well-staged. The car chase early on in particular is good fun, and even the shots of planes overhead are done more convincingly than in “TWTWB” (Some shots are eerily similar).

 

If you can get past the offensive, right-wing reactionary stuff (there’s even some actual flag-waving, proving that Americans have absolutely no self-awareness), some of this is schlocky fun, but not enough of it, and I just don’t think this kind of film should exist beyond the 1980s. Scripted by Carl Ellsworth (“Red Eye”, “Disturbia”, and the remake of “Last House on the Left”) and Jeremy Passmore, I just find the idea of getting youngsters to go to war offensive and frankly not convincing most times. Also not convincing? North Korea amassing an invading army against the US. They might have a large army, but they also only have about 25 million people in total, whereas everyone knows America is a true superpower. The film flopped, so I guess I’m not the only one who felt this was all a bit unnecessary. Truth be told, I think the filmmakers probably knew this wasn’t the right climate for a reactionary teen action fantasy, as they even went so far as to digitally remove all traces of the original Chinese baddies and made them Koreans. ‘Coz you wouldn’t wanna piss anyone off with a reactionary action flick, right? In all seriousness, it probably had more to do with economic/box-office concerns, but still...if the filmmakers were truly honest, the ‘baddies’ would’ve been Islamic extremist terrorists, wouldn’t they?

 

Rating: C