Red Dawn

Read the One Star Reviews, decided to rent it, and Bought it after watching it
I almost did not watch this movie. But after renting Judge Dredd based on the large number of five star reviews it recieved, and deciding that it was not my cup of tea, I felt that perhaps I did not need to put as much stock in the opinions of others, even if those opinions are apparently shared by a number of people. Back to "Red Dawn" [the remake]. It is not that bad. Granted, it is different, both in terms of story line and character development than the original. After watching the remake, I also bought the original on Amazon Instant Video so I could watch them back-to-back and compare. The original does a better job at portraying the characters on a human level (at least for the Wolverines, but also for some of the bad guys such as the Russian Spetznaz commander and the Cuban Colonel). The remake falls short in terms of helping you identify with the characters. On the plus side, the story line of the remake is a bit more plausible (Marine on leave organizing a guerilla...

Q: How does this remake stack up against the original? A: It doesn't
"Dude, we're living Call of Duty. And it sucks."

So says a character in Red Dawn 2012, succinctly summing up the movie. This film purports to be a remake of John Milius's 1984 cult classic about a group of American teens who band together to fight back against communist invaders but don't be fooled. In reality Dawn 2012 is a poor man's version of the Red Dawn inspired missions from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (where the Russians invade America).

Dawn 2012, like too many blockbusters, feels like a movie assembled by a committee to say nothing and offend no-one, to be as safe and commercial as possible. I am glad to say that in this case second guessing the lowest common denominator didn't pay-off and that Dawn 2012 flopped at the box office. The original Red Dawn isn't a perfect movie - the script is a bit disjointed and the acting could be better - but at least it has convictions. At least it takes some risks. At least it has a director who is passionate about...

Not Bad, But Just Doesn't Have the Heart of the Original 1984 Film.
Well I just got back from the Midnight movie of this film which is a remake of the 1984 original movie, Red Dawn, which had an all star cast consisting of; Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, and Powers Boothe. The setting for the 1984 film was a small town in Colorado when suddenly during a normal fall school day, Soviet, Nicaraguan, and Cuban troops parachute out of the sky and begin landing on the football field and throughout the small Colorado town. A few of the teenagers led by Patrick Swayze's character Jed, flee into the mountains and left to fend for themselves while the remaining towns people that were captured are forced to live at the whim of the invading forces. After a few short weeks of living in the mountains the teens are forced to make a decision on whether or not to fight or submit to the rule of the occupying...

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