America's Under Siege (Again): First-Look Footage At Long-Delayed 'Red Dawn' Remake

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by Cain Rodriguez
August 4, 2012 11:19 AM
1 Comment

The past couple of years have seen more than a few long-delayed films finally being released, including last year’s “The Tree of Life” and “Margaret” and this year’s “Cabin in the Woods.” And now we have the first footage from the remake of the '80s America-under-siege film, “Red Dawn,” albeit in butchered form from Entertainment Tonight.

In case you need a refresher on why we’re only just now seeing a teaser for a film that wrapped in 2009, the same MGM financial woes that slowed the development of both “The Hobbit” and “Skyfall” kept the remake on the shelf. Although the studio tried to sell the movie (and eventually did to Film District), it became clear that the decision to make China the foreign force that invades an American suburb would be problematic because of that massive nation's foreign box office importance. And so some digital retooling was done to make North Korea the evil tyrannical invaders, and voila, situation fixed (they hope).

While it's hard to tell how awful or tolerable the picture may be because of that always-insufferable ET voice-over, what's unveiled here still feels rather predictable, jingoistic, therefore dated and kind of poorly-conceived. But what do we know, surely someone thinks this looks bad-ass.

On the plus side for the studio, it should be even easier to market the movie now that leads Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson have bigger profiles thanks to their respective franchises, "Thor" and "The Hunger Games." Also featuring Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, Josh Peck, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Connor Cruise, “Red Dawn” finally sees the light of day on November 21st. Check out the teaser clip below. Thoughts?