Wolverines! The remake of the 80′s movie Red Dawn has finally released a trailer. The movie was made way back in 2009, shelved when MGM went bankrupt, and finally taken to completion by Film District after some alterations. Now that we have the preview for it, we can start to form an opinion about whether or not this movie should have stayed hidden. It features two stars that have become huge box office draws with Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games), which will undoubtedly make the studio some money. But while it was perfectly okay to kill a bunch of Russians back in 1984 (what with the Cold War still going on), the decision to have the Chinese invade Washington made for a movie that would not make money in foreign markets (China’s box office numbers for American movies are a big portion of profits). So the Chinese were digitally changed into Koreans, in order to make every body happy. But when a movie (especially a remake) has been delayed for so long and tinkered with in post-production for something as silly as completely removing the enemy, it certainly makes me worried. Here’s the long awaited trailer:
Well it certainly looks cool. The director is a first timer named Dan Bradley, who is best known as a stunt coordinator for the Sam Raimi Spider-man movies as well as the Bourne series. That at least explains the awesome action shots that are clearly on display. I don’t think explosions and gun play are going to be the problem with this movie. The original features a bunch of high school kids fighting an army of Russians who have taken over their hometown. It works because it’s about ordinary people fighting back to save the American way. But in the recent version, it’s not just high schoolers but a marine who leads them to form a guerrilla resistance group against the enemy invaders. Jed Eckert was always the leader of this gang, but Patrick Swayze played him as the star quarterback – not a marine returning for a holiday which is Chris Hemsworth’s role. I wonder how that will effect the rest of the story. I suppose it makes it more plausible that these teens can learn how to fight from someone who has had training, but it also takes away from the “ordinary people becoming heroes” feeling from the 80s version.
Some other problems I noticed while watching these kids in action is the fact that Chris Hemsworth and Josh Peck don’t look that much alike even though they’re supposed to be brothers in the film. I also don’t really understand how the marine of the family is still sleeping on the couch while bombs are going off. Aren’t they trained to hear that sort of thing and react? Along with the fact that whatever re-touching they did might look a little wonky when cut in with the real film, it could make for an interesting viewing. But despite these few problems, I still want to check out the movie on November 21st. I’m sure hoping that the action and the great actors can make up for whatever issues the studio has tried so desperately to cover up.
What do you think of the trailer for Red Dawn? Are you excited about the film or do you think it should have stayed in the Hollywood vault?
