The original Red Dawn was released at time when America needed it. It’s the story about Russia invading America, and a rag-tag-group of young people gathering together to form an armed resistance. The movie was a big hit at the time and has been engraved into pop culture with the single yelling of the word “wolverines”. Therefore, a remake had to be made. This time it’s going to be bigger and better: it’s North Korea and the Russians. But due to MGM financial trouble, the movie was shelved until November 2012. Almost 3 years later, and with a cast now with some weight behind it, Red Dawn is once more unleashed on us at the theaters.
Unfortunately “unleashed” is too strong of a word for this film. This is just a movie that happened. It’s that simple. It brings nothing new to the table and is very forgettable. It is the perfect film to get at the red box rental or just wait for Netflix to stream. If you were to spend more than a matinee price, you will be upset. The story doesn’t change that much. It’s still about America being invaded and us following the group of young rebels. But in the original you felt that months had gone by for them to train and learn a little bit about defending themselves, getting to know the characters and caring about them. In this new one we get a four minute montage scene that shows how in just under a few weeks these kids became the best of the best. But in a 90-minute movie, some things have to be rushed. I guess things like plot, character development, and story just aren’t as important as they used to be.
What hurts the film the most is the lack of character development. It’s the one thing a movie like this needs. How are we, the audience supposed to understand what’s at stake. When the movie attempts to do some development, it stops the film dead in its tracks. You never once find yourself caring for any of the people. We never get enough time to do so, which I feel is the lack of talent in the editing. This is one of the worst edited movies I have ever seen. Editing in movies is something most people would never notice until it’s bad, and a badly edited film can make or break it. You can tell that there were scenes and dialogue cut out because everything feels so disconnected from one scene to the next.
This is a movie where you might find yourself yelling for the cameraman to get a tri-pod. The use of the “shaking cam style” is so poorly used that it makes you feel dizzy. You see that the filmmaker is trying to go for a “gritty artist” style for the shots. But they are so clumsy, you just never know what you’re looking at. It’s almost as bad as Transformers was. And because of the use of way too many close-ups during the fighting, you aren’t able to understand or see what’s happening.
A lot of the blame has to be put on the shoulders of the first time director Dan Bradley, a stunt coordinator turned director who has worked on many impressive projects: The Bourne films, Raimi’s Spider-Man, Ghost Protocol, Quantum of Solace just to name a few. All are movies with great action; I feel he should have actually learned something from watching good directors over the years. I’m sure he’s a great stunt coordinator, but honestly, stick to what you know. This wasn’t the best first film and if it doesn’t do well, we might not see another from him.
Now MGM did the smart thing by holding the movie off a few years, now they have the ability to use Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutchson as stars to get people in the theater. Both are well known for Thor and The Hunger Games respectively, I’m sure every little bit of positive publicity will help. The rest of the cast is good and does what it can with a messy script. Josh Peck, Adrianne Palicki and Jeffrey Dean Morgan all turn in fine performances even in this movie. It just makes you wish to see all of them together in a better film. You may find yourself not caring for the characters but you do care for the actors, but only because you like them from better things.
Red Dawn is not a terrible movie. It’s just not a very good one. There are some things to enjoy in the movie: plenty of explosions, the actors, and some hurrah moments. But it doesn’t make the cut. This should have been fun. There was no reason for this to not have worked. I’m sure that with more time, better story, and a more experienced director, this could have been a solid remake. But what we got was the same garbage we always get. If you’re looking for a good Red Dawn movie, we already have one. Watch the original. It may be dated, but it’s still better than this.