Unnecessary Remake - Red Dawn

The original Red Dawn is a fun movie. It is a product of it's time with a sinister coalition of Russians, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, etc conquering a third of the US while Europe sits by and watches (except for England; hat-tip to our English brothers and sisters). Set in Calumet, Colorado, the original film followed the exploits of a group of resistance fighters, mostly teenagers. It ends with most of the protagonists dead and an epilogue set an unspecified number of years later that makes it clear that America eventually won World War Three. It has decent acting, some great action sequences, a lot of more-or-less accurate Soviet gear and a bitter-sweet ending.

The remake involves North Korea invading America using some poorly explained EMP device to cripple the US military. Oh, and Russia just "occupies" the East Coast. How? Obviously, all Russian mail-order brides are really spetsnaz operators. Anyway, a motley group of 30-year-olds playing teenagers run to the mountains around Spokane and start making life difficult for the invaders.

The remake is not just bad; it is unnecessary. A good remake should bring something new and interesting to the original story. Remakes, reimanginings and reboots are not inherently bad; but they have to have their own voice, something unique about the way they tell the story. It helps if that voice is as good or better than the original film's. The Red Dawn remake fails in both counts. The story it tells is inferior to the original's and the the way it tells is it is generic. Characters are one-dimensional and the actors bland. The villains are aren't even; they have no character at all. It's interesting that at the height of the Cold War, the original manages to spend some time giving a few of the invaders personality; the remake says "Why bother? Here's an explosion." Even the action is dull, relying on excessive "shakey-cam" and bad CGI. The finale, which in the original captures the tragedy of war and the bittersweet nature of victory, is terrible, a last bit of action and no conclusion. Maybe they were hoping for Red Dawn 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I saw it on Netflix and, with the amount of time I spend streaming, any particular movie winds up costing me about 15 cents. I still feel ripped off. Avoid at all costs.