Movie Review: Red Dawn

Cast:

Chris Hemsworth: Jed Eckert

Josh Peck: Matt Eckert

Josh Hutcherson: Robert Kitner

Adrianne Palicki: Toni Walsh

Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins

Rating: PG-13

Plot: A town in Washington state gets invaded by North Korea. A group of teenagers band together to save their town and maybe even America from this invasion.

In My Opinion: Being a huge fan of the original I was excited to see the remake. I'm not going to compare this movie with the original one, it wouldn't be fair. This movie did not take long for the action to start, which I found to be a mistake. It didn't give me enough time to connect with the characters. All I knew to this point was the older brother Jed was back from Iraq and was having issues with his younger brother Matt, who just lost the big football game. I also learned their mother is dead and their father is a cop. Oh yeah and, Matt has a beautiful girlfriend and Toni digs Chris. I was excited to see Adrianne Palicki, who plays Toni. All of the Friday Night Lights fans knows her as Tyra Collette. Anyway, not really making a connection with the characters made it hard to feel sad when one of them gets killed. It was like, "Oh they killed so and so, who cares." Now the action in this film was amazing and entertaining. I found myself cheering for the Wolverines (AKA: the good guys). And once I did connect to the characters I began to really care for them and hoped they didn't get killed. I do have one huge complain about the filming, the camera moved around so much I began to feel sick. I hate when films do that. This movie is filled with lots cliche lines, in fact there was a moment I thought Jed (the older brother) was going to say "Yippee-kai-yay mother...." you all know the rest. Anyhow, this movie was entertaining enough to get your mind off the real world for a while.

It's Rating Time

The Story: 4 out of 5 stars: Yes it was done before many years ago, but it's still a good story line if you are willing to suspend your disbelief.

The Acting: 3.5 out of 5 stars: Some of the actors in the smaller roles were a little bit annoying, but the rest of them were pretty good, including Josh Peck from The Drake and Josh show.

The Action: 4.5 out of 5 stars: Who doesn't like things blowing up? 

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Go see this movie and then after rent the original. They are both good films with great eye candy.

~Maria