Film : Red Dawn 2012

Film : Red Dawn

Genre: Action, Thriller

Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson

Run Time: 93 minutes

Most reviews and critics gave this film negative ratings, primarily because of the lack of character development since dialogue was vague . The focus was to quick cut from action to action, giving characters no chance to bond becuase the camera never sticks around long enough. The film is a fictional story about North Korea invading the United States but a band of high school kids and an enlisted marine form a resistance and fights them off using guerrilla style tactics.

The film starts out in a cliché matter of propaganda in a compilation of news reenactments of the so called “horror” to come.  It pieces together fictional reports but does add some real footage to surround the story was plausibility, such as President Obama addressing our nation when talking about the crisis surrounding our economy.  Immediately the audience should be on edge as a threat is established and we’re only two minutes into the film.  We don’t really see tensions build, instead we’re already expecting the action before we meet any of the characters.

The  introduction of the main characters is brief but we have a good idea about who they are and soon after walls tremble and paratroopers as far as the eye can see start coming down from the sky. This movie is fast paced for the action movie goer; however the lack of character development suffers so that when characters are picked off you don’t think much of it. It becomes clear that this movie doesn’t bother with the theatrics of dramatizing conversation as many facial expressions communicate with us more than any of the characters verbally.  The film tried to limit dull moments and made it a point to always cut to action as the movie progresses. We never learn more about the characters than what we do from the beginning.

 Moments of the film were often shot like a montage and just a collection of segments would piece together a battle and than they would be back in the woods.  Since there is so little narration the audience has no detail of their plans. This was interesting when keeping in mind how they were fighting so it would surprise us as much as the enemy. It negatively impacted the films at times because characters you were unfamiliar with would look like they already got captured but really were planning attacks. It was an interesting concept for a film but with such a low run time you wouldn't expect much drama .