Red Dawn (12)
Directed by: Dan Bradley
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson
Running time: 93mins
Out Now
A group of teenagers look to save their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers.
The entire world is in an economic downturn; North Korea, led by a new leader, launches aggressive tactics against North America and an invasion occurs.
High School football player Matt Eckert (Josh Peck), along with his fellow “Wolverine” Team Mates, and led by his brother Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth), an Ex-Marine, set up a resistance to fight the Koreans.
With the constant threat of being found and captured by the Koreans, the young group slowly start to build upon the small success of targeting their aggressors. But with the risks becoming greater with each attack, will the group be successful in driving off their country’s occupiers?
Red Dawn, a remake of the 80’s film of the same name, has updated the attackers from Russians to Koreans (a clever marketing ploy by the film studio). The remake is an action-packed gloriously awful movie!
It is awful in its clichéd script with ear-aching dialogue, so bad that at times the audience can pre-empt the words before they are spoken. With insults that are literally laugh-out-loud for their sheer cringe-worthiness, the script and plot centre firmly on the unbelievable.
We have The Koreans parachuting soldiers into a town outside a major city and turning up with state of the art equipment including USA Hummers in a scene directly after them landing. We also have our young heroes go from scared teenagers to battle-hardened soldiers in a short montage that implies that only a week or so has taken place.
The acting is another awful piece in this gloriously bad puzzle. A key point is that the audience are to believe that the main cast are a bunch of high schoolers. Not since the last Harry Potter film have mid-twenties actors portrayed 17-year-olds so unconvincingly.
But, as stated earlier, this is a gloriously bad movie. Bad; in that it is enjoyable on so many levels. The dialogue, whilst cringe-worthy, is laughable. The acting, thankfully sparing the audience from prolonged love scenes, is also laughably bad. Added to this mix are the over-the-top explosions and pin point accuracy of the heroes against the ‘miss by a mile’ shots of the professional soldiers!
With shots that are virtually lifted verbatim from the likes of V (the original mini series from the early 80s), Red Dawn is definitely in the category of so bad it’s enjoyable.
Although it’s a remake, and let’s face it, the original was no Amadeus, this is one film where you can clearly leave your brain at home and sit back and enjoy an unintentional action comedy. In essence, if you love the likes of Toy Soldiers, The Rescue and Iron Eagle, then you will consider this one of the best movies ever made! If, on the other hand, you require your movies to have some form of acting and script, then best to avoid this at all costs.
2 out of 5
Ps: Both stars are for making me remember my childhood in watching V and the above mentioned movies and not necessarily for the quality of this one.
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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