Red Dawn
starring Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck, Isabel Lucas and Adrianne Palicki
screenplay by Jeremy Passmore and Carl Ellsworth
directed by Dan Bradley
Rating: ◊◊◊◊◊
This is a 2012 re-make of the 1984 movie of the same name that was directed by John Milius, and starred Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Lea Thompson. I remember watching the 1984 Red Dawn when I was in college. It was exciting, neat, juvenile and totally stupid. The re-make is worse. In the original, the continental U.S. is invaded and occupied by Soviet Russia. Half occupied. The U.S. is split into an occupied half and “Free America,” roughly at the Mississippi River. It was a cold war movie. A group of high school kids, calling themselves “Wolverines” after their school’s football team, organizes into a guerilla band to harass the Russians.
The 2012 version is almost exactly the same, except now it’s North Korea that has invaded and occupied. This is the second recent movie about North Korea attacking America. The other was White House Down (2013, directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx). It’s a sign of the times, folks!