Mission Impossible: ‘Red Dawn’ remake fails to find relevancy

We’re not sure how 1984’s Red Dawn became a cult hit. The film’s cold war theme undoubtedly played into popular fears about a Soviet invasion. And the fact that a group of fearless teens survive and give the communists some serious grief also plays into patriotic impulses. But it just doesn’t make sense to remake the movie, especially since the storyline was so rooted in the ‘80s.

In the Red Dawn remake, the enemy is no longer Russian. Rather, North Koreans have invaded the country and in the film’s opening scene we see their tanks rolling through the streets of Spokane. Jed (Chris Hemsworth) and his younger brother Matt (Josh Peck) organize a group of teens and they christen themselves the Wolverines in honor of the school’s football team. They move to the outskirts of town and begin to amass weapons at the family cottage. But when a traitor turns them in to the North Korean militants, they’re flushed from their safe house and have to hole up in a makeshift bunker.

The North Koreans take hold in Spokane but the Wolverines prove to be a proverbial thorn in their side, staging raids designed to peck away at their stranglehold on the city’s residents. Hemsworth and Peck do their best to bring out the valiant qualities of their respective characters, but the film’s flimsy plot and broad stroke politics are such deterrents, there’s little that can be done to salvage this misguided flick. Don’t expect to see a scene-by-scene reenactment of the first film, either. This version steals a few choice scenes but ultimately takes so many liberties with the original’s plot that it bears only a passing resemblance.