This Red Dawn is a bit different with several tweaks to the story line while still maintaining the same story.
Originally set in a small fictional Colorado town (presumably one similar toVan Horn, Texas, the tweakers took the story into not-so-small Spokane, Washington, and this is where it goes bad:
The scene of North Korean paratroopers descending into crowded Spokane neighborhoods was rather hard to accept.
Invasion forces just don't operate that way, instead preferring to drop beyond populated areas and work their way in. Way too dangerous to drop in among startled and pissed off indigenous within a gun-ownership society.
It is NOT possible to establish a defensive perimeter (what every invader seeks to do, and even more so with lightly-equipped paratroops) in the middle of a population center... while immediately and simultaneously setting about the tasks of subjugation and oppression... which happens here.
Also hard to accept is the idea that all of Spokane (population well over 200,000) was willing to take it hard and deep from a bunch of gooks except for a measly 8-9 high school kids.
Maybe the folks of a Van Horn (population, 2500) could be 'shocked and awed' quickly enough for a couple thousand troops to take control, but I doubt such in a larger Spokane.
Herein lies the problems with Red Dawn 2012.
Everything is bigger. Bigger explosions. Bigger enemy. Bigger goals and objectives. Bigger action. Bigger is not always better.
If some thought the fantasy of the original was far fetched (I did not at the time, as I was much younger, more idealistic), they will find this one stretching the limits of credibility to the point of just plain stupid.
They had a good thing in the original, something to build off of and improve. There was plenty to improve upon, too.
But they didn't.
They just went Bigger.
"Bigger = Better" is the mindset best suited for the sophomoric intellect, like those small dick dudes who drive big trucks.
Exactly the same demographic who would see this as a great film, though it is not.
But yer high school-aged son will love it.
2 comments:
This seems like the least essential re-boot of the last few years. Which is really saying something.
If you really wanted to re-make Red Dawn and make it relevant to now, you'd set it in Iran. And you wouldn't have to worry about pissing off the Chinese, either, because that's not who would be invading.
i think we are done with invading mid east nations for a while. i hope so, anyway.
Post a Comment