Red Dawn - Alba rossa

A few of the positive reviews for this film were probably written by real people... like 13 year old boys, and frustrated, wannabe soldiers who failed the IQ test.

The rest can only have been added here by a cubicle farm of movie studio marketing drones, who really earned their pay trying to think of good things to say about this sad, career-damaging waste of time.

Josh Peck is one of the all-time worst casting calls, and should become a cautionary tale amongst casting agents.

Agent 1: 'What do you think of this guy for the main character?'

Agent 2: 'Are you trying to 'Josh Peck' this film?'

He looks about 20 years older than his older brother, and even in the most dramatic scenes - has a mopey expression on his face that makes you want to slap him. All I can imagine is that he helped fund the film, because there's no other logical reason for him playing this part.

I would have liked to be in the screening room when they showed this to the studio head. There was probably a long silence when the curtain fell, as half a dozen people were fired by text.

And I'm mostly talking about Josh Peck... if a better actor had played his role I think the movie could have been saved.

Hemsworth was solid as usual, Josh Hutcherson wasn't bad, Friday Night Lights girls was good...although she was overly dramatic towards the end... and Isabel Lucas was a total smoke show like she usually is.

But Peck made every scene he was in seem like a horrible high school play or a really bad acting class where the students are trying to "out drama" one another.

Also, the ending of this movie was stupid as heck. At least the original movie gave us some closure and let us know the outcome of the resistance and the war.

His character was so annoying, and his acting straight up sucks. This movie could have been better, without him in it.

Just by looking at him is annoying.

I'm not going to critique the acting, photography, or editing too much. They're bad/average for Hollywood.

No I'm going to focus more on the huge failures in basic logic and basic film making the new 'Red Dawn' makes.

Of course this is a remake of the 80s Reagan era classic about an American everytown invaded by communist troops. The only escapees of the high school massacre opening scene become survivalists in the deep woods and become insurgent freedom fighters calling themselves "The Wolverines." In this sense 'Red Dawn' is true to the original plot.

The first major flaw is high school students (all in their early thirties) awaking to poorly animated CGI airplanes dropping CGI paratroopers. These are some of the worst FX in recent memory. How difficult and basic is it to simply dress some stuntmen in military fatigues and film them parachuting? The did it in the first film just fine! The second, which many fans were already groaning over was that red China threatened a boycott not only of this but all of the studios films from ever being released in there, if the Chinese were portrayed as the communist invaders. Hence we're stuck with North Korea as the villains.

In an opening montage a sarcastic reporter asks, "What are they building a army this large for?" The logical guess would be that North Korea is still officially at war with South Korea, but 'Red Dawn' would have us believe they're secretly planning to invade the American West Coast? There is also some dispute as to how much of the film was made prior to villains' nationality change. Some rumors state the actors were actually filmed speaking Mandarin and had to be dubbed speaking Korean. It's unclear from the released footage.

Third, much like 'V For Vendetta' Hollywood also seems to have forgotten why communism is evil. In one ridiculous scene the Wolverines rob a Subway restaurant for its fresh bread and meat. See this is why communism doesn't work, the people are too poor to have things like fresh food. HOW THE FXXX would a communist Subway have fresh food? This is why it took decades for McDonald's to open its Moscow location. Because communists don't understand basic principles like farms delivering food to restraints. This isn't so much an insult to the intelligence of the audience as it is to the film makers.

There are various other plot holes, such as the blonde love interest (Isabel Lucas) being held as a political prisoner. "She's a survivor. I'm sure she's fine," the Wolverines reassure each other. Yes, certainly the invading troops wouldn't be using a gorgeous blonde teenager for gang rape or anything. As you may recall in the original Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson were both gang rape victims.

Another flaw is the Wolverines driving into the woods and looking for a radio. Certainly one of the three cars they drove in would have had a radio.

All in all the new 'Red Dawn' isn't that bad. It just strips most of the emotional scenes we loved from the original and turns a bold premise into a 90 minute shoot'm up flick.

The United States gets invaded by North Korea. That pretty much sums up the ludicrousness of the film. I mean, the original had Soviet Union being the invading force, which at least played to the fears and politics of the time. This didn't have the guts to go with Russia - although they kinda did - but couldn't they haven chosen anything else but North Korea?

Not that it really matters. The whole premise is silly, but so is the movie as a whole. And the worst thing is that it tries to take itself way too seriously. The tone is grim and dark, the characters suffer, there's death and dismemberment, the whole gruesome nine yards. And throughout this whole ordeal were supposed to believe that North Korea successfully invaded the only superpower of our time. Yeah... no.

And the worst thing is that I've seen this idea done much better. I haven't seen the original film, but there's a film called Tomorrow, When the War Began, released a few years before this one, which takes place in Australia and has China as the invading force. Well, they don't explicitly specify the nation. But it's China. And yes, it's a stupid, silly film as well, but it acknowledges it. It's a teenage action-comedy and has much greater camp value because of it. The main characters are teenagers, like in this film, but the ludicrousness of the situation is turned to the film's advantage through decent writing and characters. And it still gets to have its guns akimbo action scenes and character deaths needed to sell the point that war is not actually such a hot idea.

So, to summarize, if the premise interests you, see Tomorrow, When the War Began instead. Enough said.