One of the worst remakes of all time
A Red Dawn remake could be awesome and very timely, but of course they turned it into a laughably bad action movie.
shareTrue that - it could have been marginably better had they stuck to China being the villain, as the decision to turn the villains into North Koreans was pretty ludicrous.
At least Milius's original was a little more concerned both with the individual survivalist aspect of the story as well as explaining the larger geopolitical backdrop. This film has practically nothing explained on either front and is much more dedicated to all the uninteresting drama and infighting between the group members.
Its few attempts at updating only made things worse too. Like there would be a functional Subway franchise in the middle of a war zone fully stocked with American brands? Are we to believe that the supply chain continues as normal during a hostile takeover of most of the USA? It was ridiculous that they pour in a bunch of soda pop too, because this would not keep very well for them while hiding out in the woods. They should have only stolen all the cured meats like salami etc.
It's a shame too because you could potentially have a good movie with the same concept - the key would be to make it realistic and filled with interesting and relatable characters. None of that happened here.
Whats the difference if it were China or North Korea as the villain? All Asians look alike and most of us cannot tell the difference
shareBecause North Korea is a far smaller and weaker country than China, even if they do have nearly as large of a military. They just have no economic means of projecting force all the way into North America.
It was also dumb because we know why they made the change late in the post production process, and that was to appease the PRC because they wanted to release it there (Hollywood was doing a lot of that last decade). Ironically I believe the Chinese still banned it anyway.
I feel like Top Gun Maverick was the turning point from the whole "lets make a movie to release in China" with the very symbolic re-addition of the Taiwan patch on Tom Cruise's costume. I had heard the studio had similarly edited the patch out but then changed their mind to put it back in.
It could have been a better movie if the US attacked North Korea instead and occupied one of their cities
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