Red Dawn

His character was so annoying, and his acting straight up sucks. This movie could have been better, without him in it.

Just by looking at him is annoying.

A few of the positive reviews for this film were probably written by real people... like 13 year old boys, and frustrated, wannabe soldiers who failed the IQ test.

The rest can only have been added here by a cubicle farm of movie studio marketing drones, who really earned their pay trying to think of good things to say about this sad, career-damaging waste of time.

Josh Peck is one of the all-time worst casting calls, and should become a cautionary tale amongst casting agents.

Agent 1: 'What do you think of this guy for the main character?'

Agent 2: 'Are you trying to 'Josh Peck' this film?'

He looks about 20 years older than his older brother, and even in the most dramatic scenes - has a mopey expression on his face that makes you want to slap him. All I can imagine is that he helped fund the film, because there's no other logical reason for him playing this part.

I would have liked to be in the screening room when they showed this to the studio head. There was probably a long silence when the curtain fell, as half a dozen people were fired by text.

I'm not going to critique the acting, photography, or editing too much. They're bad/average for Hollywood.

No I'm going to focus more on the huge failures in basic logic and basic film making the new 'Red Dawn' makes.

Of course this is a remake of the 80s Reagan era classic about an American everytown invaded by communist troops. The only escapees of the high school massacre opening scene become survivalists in the deep woods and become insurgent freedom fighters calling themselves "The Wolverines." In this sense 'Red Dawn' is true to the original plot.

The first major flaw is high school students (all in their early thirties) awaking to poorly animated CGI airplanes dropping CGI paratroopers. These are some of the worst FX in recent memory. How difficult and basic is it to simply dress some stuntmen in military fatigues and film them parachuting? The did it in the first film just fine! The second, which many fans were already groaning over was that red China threatened a boycott not only of this but all of the studios films from ever being released in there, if the Chinese were portrayed as the communist invaders. Hence we're stuck with North Korea as the villains.

In an opening montage a sarcastic reporter asks, "What are they building a army this large for?" The logical guess would be that North Korea is still officially at war with South Korea, but 'Red Dawn' would have us believe they're secretly planning to invade the American West Coast? There is also some dispute as to how much of the film was made prior to villains' nationality change. Some rumors state the actors were actually filmed speaking Mandarin and had to be dubbed speaking Korean. It's unclear from the released footage.

Third, much like 'V For Vendetta' Hollywood also seems to have forgotten why communism is evil. In one ridiculous scene the Wolverines rob a Subway restaurant for its fresh bread and meat. See this is why communism doesn't work, the people are too poor to have things like fresh food. HOW THE FXXX would a communist Subway have fresh food? This is why it took decades for McDonald's to open its Moscow location. Because communists don't understand basic principles like farms delivering food to restraints. This isn't so much an insult to the intelligence of the audience as it is to the film makers.

There are various other plot holes, such as the blonde love interest (Isabel Lucas) being held as a political prisoner. "She's a survivor. I'm sure she's fine," the Wolverines reassure each other. Yes, certainly the invading troops wouldn't be using a gorgeous blonde teenager for gang rape or anything. As you may recall in the original Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson were both gang rape victims.

Another flaw is the Wolverines driving into the woods and looking for a radio. Certainly one of the three cars they drove in would have had a radio.

All in all the new 'Red Dawn' isn't that bad. It just strips most of the emotional scenes we loved from the original and turns a bold premise into a 90 minute shoot'm up flick.

This is a remake of the campy 80s classic. It stars Chris Hemsworth , Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, and Connor Cruise. There's nothing the actors could do to save this ridiculously illogical story.

Whereas the original had the US invaded by Russia and Latin America, this one is invaded by North Korea. At least the 80s version passed the smell test. This one is just too stupid. Originally, this 2012 version was supposed to be Chinese which actually had a chance. But the change is the new history of Hollywood financing. This movie was held up in editing hell. The Chinese money didn't like to be shown as the bad guys. So a painstaking re-editing changed all the Chinese soldiers into North Koreans.

As for the story, it's still basically the same idea. Except this time there is some kind of fantastical briefcase that explains the success of the foreign invaders. It just adds another element of disbelief into the movie. I like most of the actors in this, but there are too many unreasonable things to buy into.

I'm sure this movie shows more or less how it looked when US forces dropped in to say hello in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 30 year old teenagers in this movie throw out mercilessly sub par dialog like "This is not their land. This is our back yard and we're going to fight for it," or "they killed our father, we have to fight or die." I'm sure that's what they said in Fallujah too when good ol' George W. sent his invading army to destroy their country. Aaameeerica, Aaameeerrrrriiiicaa!! God save them all, they do make me laugh and cry at the same time.

Enough has already been said in previous reviews about the wildly idiotic plot and lazy directing. Rather get the 1984 version. At least it had some heart in it, though the plot was just as ludicrous, playing on the strange fear of communism America has always fostered.

One more thing! Modern movies (this one being no exception) way overuse the lazy technique of compressing together various sorts of character growth sequences into a few minutes. It's very annoying and shows a lack of skill on everyones part.