First off
how in the hell are they ever going to resuscitate Josh Peck's career after THAT?! I seen better acting out of unpaid extra's in Matthew Broderick's "Godzilla"! Peck's performance in Red Dawn made me feel bad...not for him, but his mother! Perhaps the worst performance in modern movie history.
But Josh Peck looks like Gregory Peck compared to the pitiful Connor Cruise. Connor appeared genuinely scared...not of the invading North Koreans, but the camera! If he gets any meaningful work anytime soon, I'll kiss your ass.
I wouldn't say the beginning of the movie was promising by any means, but the middle and end made the start look like "Gone With the Wind" by comparison. It started out with the actual game of high school football, rather than just a mention of the score like in the 1984 version (in both versions, both teams lost BTW). But the implausibility of the actions in the football game made you wish they had simply just mentioned the score too. Peck couldn't stop you from noticing his bad acting even with a helmet and shoulder pads on. And that was the "good" part of the movie! It got Troll-2-like bad after that.
In the rugged, gritty 1984 version, you could feel the hunger of the kids, their fatigue, their anger, their uncleanliness. They ate everything from wild animals to cereal without milk. The women looked war-torn, disheveled. In this dud, the women apparently never ran out of lipstick or shampoo and the kids, get this, robbed a Subway for food! And because obvious product placement like robbing a Subway isn't quite enough, they called the guy behind the counter a "Sandwich Specialist" during the robbery. What was that, an extra $10,000 or so for that line to be throw in there?! Then, they eat like a typical bunch of teenagers at a party, simply throwing out leftovers. Nobody truly hungry would behave in that manner, kids or not. A single piece of rice is like gold to a hungry person. Then, when recounting the things they miss, they all mention something dumb, but one of the kids mentions Call of Duty. Really? Call of Duty, a video game about war, is on your mind when you're in an actual war? Come on. Atrocious writing. The writer just had to drop a video game reference in there, to be cool you know.
One last thing that drew my ire The scene in the original '84 classic when they shot the deer was heartfelt and memorable. In this version, I won't tell you what happened, but they could have just brought out a DVD of the '84 version and took a crap on it instead, would have worked about the same.
This movie isn't worth the buffalo sh1t on a nickel! Avoid it, trust me.
JD
But Josh Peck looks like Gregory Peck compared to the pitiful Connor Cruise. Connor appeared genuinely scared...not of the invading North Koreans, but the camera! If he gets any meaningful work anytime soon, I'll kiss your ass.
I wouldn't say the beginning of the movie was promising by any means, but the middle and end made the start look like "Gone With the Wind" by comparison. It started out with the actual game of high school football, rather than just a mention of the score like in the 1984 version (in both versions, both teams lost BTW). But the implausibility of the actions in the football game made you wish they had simply just mentioned the score too. Peck couldn't stop you from noticing his bad acting even with a helmet and shoulder pads on. And that was the "good" part of the movie! It got Troll-2-like bad after that.
In the rugged, gritty 1984 version, you could feel the hunger of the kids, their fatigue, their anger, their uncleanliness. They ate everything from wild animals to cereal without milk. The women looked war-torn, disheveled. In this dud, the women apparently never ran out of lipstick or shampoo and the kids, get this, robbed a Subway for food! And because obvious product placement like robbing a Subway isn't quite enough, they called the guy behind the counter a "Sandwich Specialist" during the robbery. What was that, an extra $10,000 or so for that line to be throw in there?! Then, they eat like a typical bunch of teenagers at a party, simply throwing out leftovers. Nobody truly hungry would behave in that manner, kids or not. A single piece of rice is like gold to a hungry person. Then, when recounting the things they miss, they all mention something dumb, but one of the kids mentions Call of Duty. Really? Call of Duty, a video game about war, is on your mind when you're in an actual war? Come on. Atrocious writing. The writer just had to drop a video game reference in there, to be cool you know.
One last thing that drew my ire The scene in the original '84 classic when they shot the deer was heartfelt and memorable. In this version, I won't tell you what happened, but they could have just brought out a DVD of the '84 version and took a crap on it instead, would have worked about the same.
This movie isn't worth the buffalo sh1t on a nickel! Avoid it, trust me.
JD