Red Dawn (2012)

Ah the long awaited and eagerly anticipated remake of the now completely dated and historic original...yes I'm being sarcastic. Luckily Thor is the main character here so that should be good right?...no wait, oh.

Unfortunately remaking the original film was utterly pointless, completely and totally a waste of time, its as if a bunch of people just had nothing much to do and HAD to remake something. So they just thought, yeah we'll just remake 'Red Dawn', we can blow lots of shit up in that.

Of course the film looks very nice, all the action is solid with fancy modern movie magic, big ass guns, natty outfits and what all modern films love doing, yep you guessed it...blowing the bollocks outta anything they can. Earth splintering explosions that will light up your TV screen, the powers that be think that somehow this makes everything OK, fiery death.

So slick looks aside what else? well there is some emotion in here, not much, not as much actual believeable emotion as the original. The reason for that is because the acting is terrible and the scenes of character building, emotional grief, heartbreak, sacrifice, courage etc...have been cut right down in this new film. Like I say there is some emotion but nothing that will actually make you feel for the characters, the original had my eyes watering up in places I kid you not, this didn't come close, I kid you not.

The whole story also seems very rushed, a quick montage of training and the youngsters are fully up to speed on most combat scenarios, fighting and weapons. Its then not long before they are taking out soldiers, vehicles, buildings etc...without blinking, amusing how trained military are so easily taken out by teenagers, but that was the same in the original too I guess.

The other crucial point is they have actually changed some of the story, yes they actually used their imagination. This I can accept because it makes the film more interesting and not just a scene for scene copy. Thing is the odd changes are worse, one major scene in particular involving one team member is completely ruined because they altered the heavy emotional decision and sacrifice involved at that moment, its lost! gone! replaced with nothing. The teens meet more marines this time who come across as badass ('a marine and his rifle, the baddest shit kicker weapon in the world'. Seriously? yes it is this corny.) yet the teens run rings around them and virtually show them what to do! eh? Also, where did they all get those nice clean camouflage outfits from for the final attack??

As I said in my review for the original, it was a film of its time, especially with the political climate at the time and all the cold war paranoia. This film doesn't really work now because the whole idea is unrealistic, politics aren't the same, everyone knows the US can't be invaded (?) and surely it might have worked better being set against the Taliban/Middle East? Back in the day against Russia who knew, they were/are a big ass country with a big ass military power.

The film is devoid of any real gut wrenching heartbreak or tension and you know what's gonna happen. All new changes to the story just don't work and lessen the effect hugely, especially for the ending, what was the point in making this really? Hell even the films poster is uninspiring and drab. And where the hell did that chopper come from right at the end ?!

2/10