Movie: Red Dawn (2012)

Red Dawn (2012)
Action

I've been wanting to see this film since it was announced and people got all up in arms about it and Tomorrow When The War Began being the same film and turning it into this massive Oz vs. US drama. Well, I have a few things to say about this... 

Being an Aussie, I love the Tomorrow series. These books written by John Marsden are classics and are actually part of the English syllabus for high school students in Australia. Tomorrow was written in the early 1990's and was followed by a series of 6 books which are all about a small group of teenagers resisting the invasion of Australia. (There is also a set of 3 or 4 books of the aftermath, brilliant!) These books are huge in Australia and pretty much everyone I know has read them. 

You can imagine the excitement when we found out it was being turned into a movie... and the disappointment when we finally got to watch it.... I won't go on about it here (I'll do a separate review). Back to the actual movie I'm talking about. 

Funnily enough, it stars Aussie Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Cabin In The Woods - gosh he chooses good roles!) as big brother Jed, fresh back from the Marines which comes in real handy when Korea invades his hometown. Along with his little brother Josh Peck (lots of voice over work and a Nickelodeon Kid) and friends (Including Josh Hutcherson fresh from The Hunger Games, the gorgeous Isabel Lucas from Transformers and Tom and Nicole's son Connor Cruise) they form a rebellion to take back their town. 

People have said Red Dawn is more realistic than Tomorrow but I'm not sure I agree. Maybe I'm Tomorrow series and it just seems to work better for me. Lots of people probably didn't like Tomorrow because its longer, there is a lot more to it and so the movie seems to be slower paced than Red Dawn which contains a lot of action and explosions. I was also more attached to the Tomorrow characters (again, probably because of reading all the books as a kid then again as an adult.)
completely biased or maybe it's because I read the entire

I'm going to have to follow this review up with a review of Tomorrow... stay tuned! 

3 out of 5 yellow-eyed demons...

PS. Great to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan ie. Daddy Winchester from Supernatural!