Red Dawn

Rating

Director

Dan Bradley

Screenplay

Carl Ellsworth, Jeremy Passmore, Kevin Reynolds (Screenplay: Kevin Reynolds, John Milius)

Length

1h 33m

Starring

Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Connor Cruise, Edwin Hodge, Brett Cullen, Alyssa Diaz, Julian Alcaraz, Will Yun Lee, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

MPAA Rating

PG-13

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Review

The desire to tap into 1980s nostalgia is often at war with the need to try something original. Red Dawn tackles a familiar story but doesn’t put enough of its own spin on it.

When the original 1984 box office hit Red Dawn released, it brought with it an array of relative unknowns into a story that was uniquely coded to the Cold War. None would know that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union were only a few years away so the longstanding threat of Soviet/Russian aggression was still a palpable subject for cinema. In that film, a Cuban invasion force parachutes into the Midwest and kills those who stand in their way. A plucky bunch of young adults (Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey) band together to do what they can to save their own little corner of the world. In that film, Russia was backing the Cuban forces, tying everything back into the threat of Communism vs. U.S. democracy.

The players are somewhat different this time around with North Korea standing in as the Russian proxy. The events move to the Pacific Northwest and the young stars include two well known actors: Chris Hemsowrth and Josh Hutcherson. They are joined by Josh Peck, Adrienne Palicki, and Isabel Lucas who, unlike their predecessors, wouldn’t go on to important roles in major films after.

The original film featured a pretty basic story outline with familiar stakes but the events didn’t seem to flow naturally from one sequence to the next. It felt disjointed. This screenplay by Carl Ellsworth, Jeremy Passmore, Kevin Reynolds, and John Milius does a much better job connecting the dots and the added impact of well established actors leading the cast gave the film a sense of scope that the original lacked.

The original had a fascinating dynamic built on the spur of the moment. Like here, both films had an explanation for how unsettled things are around the world, but while the remake was busy introducing characters, the 1984 film was raining troops on an unsuspecting High School. Those original revolutionaries were developed, in brief, through the action that leads them high into the mountains. That spontaneity might not have worked so well with the remake since it was designed to reminisce on its predecessor and entice audiences with that familiarity.

Somewhere between the two Red Dawn films is a rather cunning film wanting to be reconstructed. Perhaps in another 30 years a new attempt will be made when Russia is once again meddling in world affairs or perhaps still is considering how long the Cold War itself lasted.

Review Written

July 9, 2026