“Red Dawn” Remake Sneaks Into Theaters, a Disaster
“Red Dawn,” the remake of John Milius’s 1984 classic, sneaks into theaters tomorrow with as little fanfare as possible. It’s one of the worst received films of this year or any other, with an 11% at rottentomatoes.com. If there was press for “Red Dawn,” it must have been somewhere else. The only premiere I know of was on a military base in California–no Hollywood or New York unveiling.
“Red Dawn” was ready for a release a year ago, but no one knew what to do with it. Now it comes on the same weekend as “Life of Pi” and the widening release of “Silver Linings Playbook,” with “Lincoln” and “Skyfall” doing great, and “Rise of the Guardians” taking over the animated field. Plus, “Twilight: The Trilogy Finally Ends, Pt. 2″ is setting records.
“Red Dawn” signals the career debut of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s high school age, deejaying son Connor. But that p.r. twist isn’t going to mean much as the sun will set on this dawn long before many get to see him do any acting. MGM knows this: the “Red Dawn” DVD is already set for release on February 26, 2013– exactly 90 days from today, the bare minimum time from which a disc can be launched after a theatrical release, and two days after the Oscars–for which this film will not be a factor.
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.
kelly gardner
red dawn was the best movie ever it makes you think what are you gonna do when that happens most of yall will sorrender but me i will be a wolverine !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Justin
The original Red Dawn was a classic?! What are you smoking. It’s a cult film at best.
Greg Donovan
How about a review? Was it well acted? Good filmography? Sound?
It appeals to people the same way “Avatar” did. While “Avatar” had a much bigger budget and plunged far deeper into social commentary, which appeals to sophisticated film critics, it’s pretty much “Red Dawn” on a different planet to the rest of us.
John Smith
Koreans….really? Thanks for the heads up. I’ll definitely not be paying to see this movie.
Roger Friedman's Wet Nurse
A remake that flopped? NO! I cannot believe you! That is just not possible.. it’s doubly impossible.. it’s impossibly impossible.
Given the chance, North Koreans would defect to Amurica so fast that precocious fat young turd that leads them wouldn’t have time to belt out an entire rendition of “I’m so ronery..”
Joe McCarthy
Remember the communists I fingered in the State Department 50+ years ago? Well what was done about it after Soviet records showed I was correct 15 years ago? Cultural Marxism has overthrown America. It was brought to us by Freud and the Frankfurt school and played out in entertainment and the public school system. Now it is everywhere especially corporate America and still no one sees it. Amazing!
Chery Manning
I just watched this movie today with my family. As much as my husband and I loved the first one we wondered how we would take the second. We enjoyed the movie very much until the last 10-15 minutes. Did someone kill the writer off in the movie as well? It sure seemed that way. You don’t just kill off the main character the way they did and then end the movie without giving any reason. It’s kind of like watching water world all over again. The actors did an AWESOME job with what they had to deal with. Please don’t take this out on them. It was all the script that did this to the movie. That part I DON”T understand! I’m a writer myself, and I would NEVER have done that to a cast like this! If it was done a year in advance, why didn’t someone else notice this?
Stephie
It was a total waste of time re-making this film when there was NOTHING wrong with the original version!
JonM
Just got back from this film tonight. It surprised me. I saw the first one with my father and it felt strange to see this one without him. Amazingly the producers were able to sync in enough real news footage in the intro to make this seem legit. Granted, keeping the Chinese would have been more believable than the North Koreans.
The footage of Obama speaking would have hurt his re-election prior to Nov. 6, but the post-election release resonates with Red-(patriotic, not commie)-State America of just how bad the next four years could get.
The Left Coast and its Atlantic counterpart may not get the movie, but it will make sense to those in the Heartland.
Politics aside, everyone’s lowered expectations of this movie will help it with audiences. It’s much better that I thought it would be and it’s at least as good as the original.
BpSitRep
Is there any wonder that this film is a flop? They caved into political correctness and changed the bad guys from plausible Chinese into never, ever could or would happen Koreans.