Now think of another one - this time, one you want to see brought up to date with a modern reworking. One you think would really benefit from a fresh perspective.
Last one. Think of an 80s film - again, any one will do - only this time, make it one you wouldn't want to see re-made in a million years. Because it's so bad, because it's so good, doesn't matter why, just pick one.
Now put your hand up if any of you had Red Dawn on either of those lists.
Thought not.
The premise is simple. Russia, Cuba and Nicaragua are allies and have invaded the United States. One former high school quarterback and a random collection of students (including two girlies) escape the might of an armed force strong enough to take over America and head to the hills. There, with no military training whatsoever, they train themselves into a guerrilla unit strong enough to cause major damage to the conquering forces. Then a stray army unit turns up, and it goes completely tonto.
And so to the remake.
Gone are Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and Lea Thompson. In are Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck and Isabel Lucas. Gone too are the Russians, Cubans and Nicaraguans.
But that's the only change.
It's still an invading force, it's still a bunch of college kids (and three girlies), there's still an army unit, it's still nuts. Just not quite as nuts as the original. Sadly, it's not that simple. You see, the remake of Red Dawn has had something of a troubled birth.
For a start, it got shelved in 2009 when MGM went belly-up, something that also put Skyfall in doubt. Fortunately all that got solved, and now both films have finally made it to the big screen. Still, win some...
Unfortunately for Red Dawn, the original plan was to have the baddies as the Chinese. Sound thinking in 2009, apparently, but come 2012 someone woke up and remembered that the Chinese economy is not only one of the fastest growing, it also tends to lend money to America. Perhaps painting them as an invading force is not such a good idea. Hmmm, what to do... Who to pick... Who's bad and looks a bit Chine....
NORTH KOREA!
Genius!
All that's needed is some digital wizarding, change all Chinese flags to North Korean (not South, don't want another Olympics faux pas) and we're good to go. Hurrah!
That done, here we are. The remake that almost never happened, despite no one wanting it anyway.
Brilliant. And to be honest, it's not that bad. OK, it's nuts - that's a given. But that was always going to be the case given the original. Here, though, there's proper characters, there's better action sequences, and there isn't a film score that has apparently been borrowed from a Saturday afternoon TV movie. So that's a plus.
And at one point, you hear Dragonette playing on a car stereo. Double plus.
It also doesn't have the large banner across the screen saying COMMIES BAD; YANKS GOOD, like the original. There may not have been a lot of thought here, but at least that bit's not quite so obvious. And the actors look like they know what they're doing (which is more can be said of the first one, no matter what talent is on show). Chris Hemsworth is a Marine on leave, having joined up to avoid dealing with his mother's death. Josh Peck (born two years after the first film came out) can't act his way out of a paper bag, bless 'im, but still manages to drag himself through 90 minutes as Hemsworth's brother (a quarterback who doesn't always listen to instructions - could be an important plot point that, but we couldn't possibly comment).
Jeffrey Dean Morgan convinces as the aged, experienced Marine who stumbles upon the young renegades - partly because the other two are useless, but also because he can actually act - and of the youngsters, the girls get to do more than just sulk and plant bombs.
And that's about it.
It won't tax your brain, it won't pull at your heart strings, and if you're not screaming "OH COME ON" at the final scenes I'll be amazed, but it's not a bad film.
Not great, sure, but not bad.
Probably because the first one was so awful.
One final thing.
As mentioned above, the anti-commie diatribe of the first film had all the subtlety of an elephant sitting in your lap, but this has a different message. And it's a corker.
During a stirring speech, Hemsworth's character explains - with no sense of irony - how it'll be easy to disrupt the North Koreans, as they're just soldiers sent to a land they don't want to be in to do a job they don't want to do.
He then goes on to point out that, in Iraq, he was the good guy because they were restoring order. But now they were the bad guys as they had to overthrow an unwanted invading force.
Get that Iraq? Afghanistan? Native America? Standing up to invading forces and attempting to throw off the shackles of an oppressive army is a bad thing. And he does it with a straight face.Which is more than I kept.
Still, better than the original...
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