Red Dawn (2012)
Certified: 12
Duration: 93 minutess
Directed by: Dan Bradley
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Connor Cruise, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Edwin Hodge, Brett Cullen, Alyssa Diaz, Will Yun Lee
KRS release

Chris Hemsworth is Jed, a soldier who has just returned home to Spokane, Washington, after serving in Iraq.

His sheriff father Tom (Brett Cullen) and his brother Matt (Josh Peck), who is the quarterback for the Wolverines college American football team, are not so enthused to see him.

The opposite can be said of Toni (Adrianne Palicki), who has been friends with him since they were kids.

Matters turn ugly during a power outage. This is followed by an invasion from what looks to be North Korean military.

Jed and Matt are soon off to the woods looking for safety, taking with them other teenagers such as Daryl (Connor Cruise), the mayor’s son, and Robert (Josh Hutcherson). After some time, others join them, including Danny and Julie (Edwin Hodge and Alyssa Diaz). Max starts training these teens to turn them into a gang of guerrilla fighters in order to survive and hit back.

Meanwhile, Matt wants to free his girlfriend Erica (Isabel Lucas) from the camp where she is being held.

The group is later joined by Col. Andy Tanner (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and other marines. The Wolverines, as they call themselves, soon bring attention to themselves and have to face off against Captain Lo (Will Yun Lee).

I still remember the 1984 version of Red Dawn, directed by John Milius, and being completely bowled over. There were several reasons for this; most importantly, I was still in my mid-teenage years and a film which had teens picking up guns and getting all gungho on adults was something of a high in itself.

Besides, the film starred Lea Thompson who was my Hollywood crush at the time. It also marked Charlie Sheen’s debut and brought together Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey three years before Dirty Dancing.

To this day, it remains one of the films I refuse to watch again in fear that the sheen that time has given to the movie in my mind will be removed and I will suddenly discover that Red Dawn may not be such a great movie after all.

Having said all this, one can freely admit that teenagers might have been a bit more naive back then. This aspect comes out clearly in the new Red Dawn, which reflects modern trends, especially in the video-gaming attitude that it takes to both film-making and gunplay.

I am not going to enter into comparisons between the remake and the original, as the two films were made with two different generations in mind. This time round, however, the story is not so new; recently we had other films where teenagers picked up arms to fight off the foreign invader.

In its essence, the new version keeps to and sticks with the central comic book plotting motif along with plenty of patriotic rousing moments mostly provided by Hemsworth still in Thor-like mode.

It’s also interesting to note that it is now the North Koreans who are being brought in as the bad guys, with Hollywood not wanting to hit out at China to avoid forfeiting the lucrative Chinese box office.

The first film was relevant to the teens who could associate with it and this is once again the case. Different to the original movie, it ends on an open-ended note.

The action sequences are well-thought-out, with the film aimed fair and square, especially in the camera style that it adopts, to first-person shooter video game fans.

One will and should never have a serious outlook to a film like Red Dawn. The possibility of the US being invaded is very minimal, although a terrorist attack is a very different matter.

Today’s world is very different from the 1980s, however, Red Dawn is still relevant and fun as its intended audience will surely agree.