Red Dawn is about a bunch of American teenagers who form a guerrilla army to fight back against a foreign invasion of the US. But forget about the text of this remake of the 1980s neofascist action flick, because it looks set to be the dumbest movie ever. Focus instead on the subtext, which tells you much more about America's place in the world than the plot ever will.
Let's start with the fact that the movie had to be digitally altered so that the Chinese invaders became North Koreans — the film-makers didn't want to upset the Chinese market (lesson: globalisation and capitalism trump nationalism). Then there's the fact that two of the all-American heroes (Chris Hemsworth and Isabel Lucas) are played by Australians (lesson: America has huge reserves of soft power, including through its ability to attract foreign talent).
But the ultimate irony of this film is that, after 10 years of bloody war in Iraq and Afghanistan in which thousands of US troops were killed by roadside bombs, ambushes, and sabotage, Hollywood can, apparently without a trace of self-awareness, make a movie in which the insurgents are the good guys.
