Red Dawn - The Remake

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I went to see Red Dawn today with some friends I reconnected with while I was visiting my parents for Thanksgiving. I have yet to see the original version from the 80s, which I hear is a great classic film, so I figured it would be good that I am going in on a clean slate and not comparing this movie to anything like a lot of people do when people go see a movie that is based off a popular novel or a remake of a popular movie.

For most movies, it takes me about an hour or two after seeing the movie to develop a truthful opinion as to what I really think about the movie. This is assuming the movie wasn't downright awful and I was at least entertained by it somewhat. In the moment, I thought this movie was good. It had a lot of action and it was like "America, f**k yeah!". We also don't get to see many movies like this anymore where the enemy is real; most movies like this made recently have supernatural enemies. Unfortunately for the movie, my final opinion is that it sucked.

First of all, the premise. The movie opens with a bunch of short real news clips tied together focusing on the eminent threat of North Korea. North Korea, a country that can't even invade its own peninsula in real life, was somehow able to invade the entire US of A in just ONE DAY without the mighty US military even fighting back. Even with Obama as president, that would never happen. The only country that is likely capable of invading the US like that is China, but even China would struggle greatly to do so. I know China was originally supposed to be the enemy in this movie, but the movie makers changed it to North Korea so they wouldn't piss off their business connections in China. North Korea, on the other hand, would have to pretty much invade all of East Asia before it would even have a chance to fight against the US, seeing that all the surrounding countries keep them in check. Not to mention that the average North Korean is less than five feet tall, so they obviously got a bunch of Chinese people to play the North Korean soldiers in this movie.

Let's forget about the premise though. I know, it's just a movie and it's nothing more than a "what if" scenario and you're supposed to just live with it. Anyways, I thought the movie was incredibly rushed. It seemed to me like a movie that was originally going to be 3-4 hours long but the movie makers cut out a bunch of random scenes from the movie just to get it under 2 hours. It would have been better if they made the movie drag out as long as it needed to or if they made this movie into a TV series instead. There isn't very much character development if there is any at all because the movie is so rushed. Speaking of which, apparently a hostile foreign military that's so powerful that it can bring the entire US military to its knees within one day couldn't handle a coalition ran by some ex-marine (who wasn't even part of RECON or any special forces unit) and a bunch of stupid kids who have never even picked up a gun in their lives.

And in a city that North Koreans run, how is Subway able to operate normally?

So, don't take my word for it. Go see this movie if you must, but just know that it's incredibly flawed and was executed poorly

It would be more realistic to make a movie about a Nazi takeover of the USA from within. Unfortunately, it would have to criticise much of the possible audience so it would never be made.

Here in Spokane, we're getting a laugh that the movie was set in Spokane, Washington, but was actually filmed in Michigan.
And, no, I haven't seen it, though I had seen the original years ago. I didn't think much of it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer