Despite the fact that we’re no longer in a cold war that’s creating easily exploitable cold war paranoia, Hollywood has decided to reboot one of the greatest cold war paranoia films of all time, Red Dawn. Sure, the story of a foreign menace invading U.S. soil isn’t likely to resonate with audiences as much in 2012 as it did in 1984 (especially seeing as film audiences are now more global), but at least it gives us a chance to watch things blow up real good. And, if the first trailer for the reboot assures us of anything, it’s that this new Red Dawn is going to have lots of explosions.
If you’re noticing that the film’s stars, like Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson, are looking a little younger than they did the last time you saw them play Thor and Peeta, that’s because Red Dawn has been sitting on the shelf for a little while due to the MGM bankruptcy and some nasty business where the bad guys were digitally changed from being Chinese to North Korean (once again, global audience). What the delay of the release doesn’t explain though, is why the action of the trailer is set to a Filter song, as this thing has only been shelved for a couple of years, not since the late ’90s.
Sweet late ’90s jams, potentially offensive digital manipulation, and remake fatigue aside, there are some things in here that make Red Dawn look like a promising revisiting of old material. The action is definitely happening on a much larger scale than it did in the 1984 film. And this time around the Wolverines seem to have a pretty specific mission to accomplish, which should give this one more structure than the original film, where they kind of just kept fighting until eventually the movie ended. These are all positives that could potentially stave off fan complaints. Still though, why not watch the trailer and decide for yourself if you want to complain?
Red Dawn is set for a November 21 release, so we’ve only got a couple more months to get it all in. [Yahoo! Movies]