Shameless Self Expression

Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizanin stars as the title Marine Corps sergeant who has come home on leave to visit his sisters. They’re struggling to keep their home, and the youngest (Ashley Bell) is unemployed and seeing a total douchebag he doesn’t like the look of. One day, Bell and said douchebag boyfriend are witness to a killing carried out by Neal McDonough and his crew, who quickly round the duo up. McDonough is a nutjob domestic terrorist who is anti-capitalist...to the extreme. Get it? ‘Coz he’s an extremist? Anyhoo, Miz gets wind of this and decides to go into action to rescue his kid sister...and the douchebag if he has time. Meanwhile, the FBI (headed by Nicola Anderson) are attempting to get Miz to help them out, or ask him to stay away altogether. Michael Eklund and Darren Shahlavi are McDonough’s goons, with the former about as reliable as...well, nothing really.   Having watched WWE/F on and off since 1986 means that when reviewing their films, I come from a completely...

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 anyth...