Red Dawn (2012)

Red Dawn (2012) directed by some guy I don't know, nor ever heard of, who honestly probably signed up just for the paycheck, which I can't blame him, as long as he admits it was the money, not the "great" story line, that drew him to the project.  Starring Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, and Josh Hutcherson.

I honestly can't see why the original Red Dawn needed to be remade.  Granted the original isn't a perfect movie, but at least it was original and John Milius knew how to create actual characters instead of carbon copies this movie managed to cut out.  He also knew how to use and earn cliched moment to the story line's advantage instead of leaning on them as a crutch.  This movie had nothing new to say that the original Red Dawn didn't already say.  Therefore making it just another Hollywood remake churned out by everyone in tinsel town who has had their fountain of originality dried up decades ago.  It's really sad as remake syndrome, sequel-itis, and franchise hungry producers seem only concerned with quantity versus any resemblance to quality in their movies.  In fact, quality, I'm convinced, is a four letter word around those offices.  This Red Dawn remake just cements the fact that Hollywood is utterly and completely lost when it comes to fresh ideas.  I wonder when it will ever come back from wherever barren, isolated island it has become stranded on.  Then I wonder if I really want them to be found.  I think, as the quality of the ten years or so of movies has shown, I would rather they stay lost.  I think it's better for everyone.

In case you haven't caught on yet I didn't really like this movie.  It was just a pointless remake that didn't need to be made.  There's a couple of things it does have going for it though that I didn't mind.  It wasn't a long movie as it came in just over 90 minutes., so, it didn't feel like a complete waste of time.  Unlike other over bloated, over long movies that just wonder on from spectacle to spectacle completely devoid of the fact they are nothing of substance.  This movie didn't even try to come up with anything of substance on its own, everything of substance in the movie it stole from the original. If anything this movie can act a metaphor for the over all philosophy of Hollywood and that is unoriginality.

Some things that caught me by surprise as I watched this movie.  Chris Hemsworth didn't take his shirt off.  It seems every movie he's been in, he's taken his shirt off and given all the girls in the world a money shot of his chest.  Honestly this movie could have made more money if they had included a shirtless Hemsworth because my wife was disappointed that shot wasn't in there.  A training sequence that absolutely made no sense at all and in its short time proved why the original Red Dawn was so much better.  In the original they were just high school kids who hunted and were just learning things on the fly.  This made them more relate-able but here they have Hemsworth's character be former military, which absolutely helps to take the viewer away from identifying with anyone in the movie.  The last mission the Wolverines take on is absolutely ridiculous and goes against everything they've been trying to do since the movie started.