Red Dumb

Ironically in most of Hemsworth's movies he seems to
have brother issues... also buns of steel.

I have been slowly coming to a realization over the past few years. Either Hollywood is becoming dumber or I am becoming smarter. (That's for my reader to decide.) Then again, maybe "smarter" is not the right word. It is just an awareness of the world around me, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about movies. Maybe, that is why I like fantasy and science fiction movies, because I feel more willing to suspend my sense of disbelief when stepping onto the fields of Middle Earth or  the deck of the Enterprise (though sufficed to say, I had more than a few problems with the last two movies in both those franchises as well.) Regardless my point seems to be: the more I watch "mainstream" movies, the more I find myself pointing out their flaws instead of enjoying any of the good parts.

Let me backtrack and explain where this is all coming from. The other night I was bored and flipping through Netflix (often the start of any disappointing adventure.) The Internet streaming service offered me, Red Dawn, (The remake, not the original), because it was just new to Netflix, and though I had no real desire to see the movie I decided to watch it. It's the same reasoning I use when someone leaves cake out at my work. I don't really want it, but damn you, it's cake. Maybe I was in the mood for action, or possibly just hoping that it might turn out to be a prequel to Thor, (or a follow-up to Drake and Josh.) I was let down on all accounts, and not because it was a terrible movie, (it was,) but because I couldn't get past the fact that the premise of the plot was ridiculous, (and mind you, I am the same person that will defend to the death a movie about a man in a bat suit fighting a man dressed up as a clown.) Character-wise and even plot-wise, I actually have no real major complaints (other than the fact that I cared very little for the characters or the course of the story in general.) Again it was like that office cake. As long as you get around the artificial sugar and texture it wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. Now both have left me with a feeling of reget.

Pictured: North Korea's Special Weapons Laboratory

Red Dawn bases itself on the premise that North Korea is somehow able to develop a weapon that can knock out all American electronic equipment while still leaving their own operational. You know because a country that has spent years struggling to develop a nuclear weapon (a weapon we have been able to build since before "TV" was a thing,) and cannot feed its people could easily develop a highly technological and specialized EM pulse weapon that defies the laws of electromagnetism. What irks me the most, is that the opening and cliched "news footage montage," played up the idea of the danger of cyber terrorism and enemy hackers being a problem, and then immediately never mentioned it again as soon as we saw Chris Hemsworth. I could have much more readily believed that a talented enemy hacker(s) were capable of crashing America's outdated and vulnerable energy grid than the fact that North Korea developed some kind of sci-fi super weapon... and the result for the plot would have been the same. It didn't even go to the trouble of setting it even ten or fifteen years in the future. No, Hemsworth's character is a US marine home after fighting in Afghanistan, and along with shots of President Obama, that sets the plot solidly in the present.

And that is my real issue with the movie, because in the current geo-socio-economic-poltical climate, the movie is completely impossible, and utterly ridiculous. Therein, lies the root of the problem with Red Dawn and movies like it. They require me to completely forget everything that is going on in the world that would very easily invalidate the very cornerstone they are built upon. So instead of suspending my belief they just remind me how stupid the premise is, over and over and over again. I had a very similar problem with Olympus is Fallen with Gerard Butler, (a movie that friend and I saw on a boring rainy Saturday.) They want to be as realistic as possible, but then hit us with a scenario that defies all real-world logic.

Both movies start to suffer at the same point. They both try to turn North Korea into some kind of super-badass threat, when in truth, Kim Jong Crazy and ilk are barely blips on the "threat to America" scale. Yet for movies they are the closest thing we have to modern day cohesive villains. (Now more than ever, I think Hollywood is really missing the Soviets and the Nazis.) Granted they still remain a threat to places like South Korea and even Japan, but a country that has to photoshop in additional military vehicles into their own army propaganda posters are not really going to be threatening the mainland US anytime soon. Both movies also suffer by asking their audience to forget that there are things outside of America or even outside the movie plot. Red Dawn is especially guilty of this.

Unless North Korea plans to attack us with crappy
picture-editing skills, I think we're pretty safe.

The movie says that North Korea is able to not only attack but invade both coasts of the United States, (with some veiled and "never fully discussed" help from Russia, because "hey remember those guys,") completely by surprise. Then aside from some of the mid-western states, the Koreans are then able to hold and control a conquered America, (not even just the west coast, which would have made it at least a little more believable... a little more.) I spent the rest of the movie waiting for a more detailed explanation of how this happened, but the closest thing we get is some half-assed explanation about how North Korea has the fourth largest army in the world... and though that is an accurate fact, do you know who has the second largest army in the world? The United States... (I looked up the original movie on Wikipedia, and found that the old movie has a much more cohesive and comprehensive background that sets it in an alternate timeline, but at least makes the invasion credible and possible.) 

Also this movie's crackpot explanation about some kind of EM pulse weapon goes right out the window because for the rest of the movie we watch characters not only drive cars, but turn on lights, and use their cell phones to take pictures. The movie also conveniently forgets things like the fact that America has satellites and radar, things that can monitor troop or vehicle movement (and, no doubt right now, there are at least a dozen of those things pointed at North Korea) and would notice anything leaving the Korean peninsula, like a large invasion force. Also the movie forgets that other countries are a thing. What about Canada and Mexico? Did they get invaded? Don't you think our North American allies might have a problem with the occupation of the US? And what about Europe? I think the UK might try to step in. Germany, Spain, Belgium, hell even France would probably bat an eye lash or two. Also the United States military has (by some accounts) almost 1,000 permanent and temporary bases located in at least 38 countries around the world. I feel like they would definitely have something to say on the matter. Even China would probably get a little pissed off. I mean who is going to buy all the crap being pumped out of their factories? I just can't wrap my head around this premise. A Galactic Empire controlled by an evil space sorcerer and his asthmatic robot helper... sure... Josh Peck waging a guerrilla campaign against North Korean invaders... nope.

"Mr. Secretary we have one hour to evacuate our troops
from South Korea or they execute the President..."
"Sir, we have roughly 28,500 military personnel, hundreds
of land, air, and sea vehicles, multiple bases of operation,
and large detachments of our Pacific Fleet currently in and
around South Korea, and you want them evacuated in 24
hours? That's just physically impossible, and stupid."

The fact is, my awareness of things like "the world," completely shatters this type of movie for me. I can't even enjoy it as some kind of sugary American patriot porn. The movie very much wants the audience to be all, "Huzzah!" over the fact that a ragtag band of American rebels is fighting and dying against a large evil empire bent on taking away their freedoms and enslaving their land. That's almost the kind of idea I can get behind, then the movie goes and reminds us that Hemsworth's character was a marine in Afghanistan, and understands how the invading Koreans feel and think, and then the Wolverines get irrevocably associated with terrorist attacks... and then we all feel kind of crappy again. Because suddenly the movie starts to seem less like a rip off of an old Cold War action movie, and more like a sad and ironic allegory for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan... Huzzah? (Even that I would find at least a little interesting if it was intentionally done by the writers and directors of the movie... it wasn't.)

I would say that these types of movies are aimed at the less aware and more self-involved Americans out there, but I don't even believe that is true. I mean the movie tanked at the box office, as did a movie that recently asked us to believe that Jamie Fox was the President of the United States. So, I am not entirely sure of what audiences these types of movies are aimed at. The truth is that in today's globalized environment, the world is not the only thing that is shrinking. The number of people who are less aware of what is going on in the world shrink a little bit each day with the speed of a Google search. Whereas in the past these movies may have been nothing more than a bit of "pointless fun," now they just seem demeaning to the national intelligence of the country, if not the world. Hollywood is going to have to wake up and realize that (nor it's movies) can no longer exists in isolated bubbles of explosions and attractive Australian actors. On the other hand, these are the types of movies that come out during the dead and sad months between Summer and Christmas, after the Iron Mans of the world have gone away and the Hunger Games have yet to start. 

So maybe that is the answer. Maybe these movies really are just like that cake that got left out in the break room. Nobody really wants them, they're just there, and at first look seem halfway decent, coated in sugar, a hint of something sweet, maybe even with a colorful topping. Your first bite isn't even that bad. You think for a moment, "okay, this might have been worth it," but by the halfway point you begin to understand the true journey of disappointment you have embarked on. Yet, you power through because let no one ever say that you didn't see this crappy piece of trash through to the end. Once its over you set aside your plate and look at the crumbs of despair left behind by the misery you just endured, and all you feel is a little sick and yet still strangely empty on inside, almost as if there was nothing satisfying about what you just ingested. All you are left with is disgust and regret, and some vague hope to justify what you just did... At least Chris Hemsworth kept his shirt on.