Tomorrow, When the War Began now airing in the U.S.

Matt Wiser

For those of us with a Red Dawn bent, this Aussie invasion movie is now airing in the U.S.; it's currently on The Movie Channel and The Movie Channel Extreme (Dish Network chs. 327-330) this month.

Best description I can give: Red Dawn lite. Some action, but mostly it's the experiences of the teens as they decide what to do, and only near the end, do they decide to resist. If there's a sequel, more action-and a correspondingly higher body count. (one judges action movies not just on the story, but on how vivid and well done the action scenes are, as well as the body count....folks used to judge an action movie by the latter category-at least they used to back in the '80s and '90s)

Review: 3 stars out of 5.
 

tehShifty

It's based on an Australian Young Adult fiction series.

Honestly, I only watched it because I have a thing for Caitlin Stasey.
It was a decent film.
 

Greg Grant

As a premise, it was interesting. But the execution was, uh, problematic. Not talking about plausibility or plot elements, but mostly the basic staging of action sequences. There are TV-movies that can do it better, and I don't know if the issue was budget or if the director just had no idea what he was doing. For the acting, meh, it is a bunch of attractive people trying to be something they can't (teens molded by circumstances into warriors/survivors), but they look good while doing it.

In addition to easy on the eyes Caitlin Stasey, there's also Phoebe Tonkin.

I would say Red Dawn-Lite is the best way to describe it, and since apparently we can't get the new Red Dawn into the theaters until they are done rewriting/mangling/altering whatever to it, this can tide you over.

Bonus points for the original novel author and screenplay writer for inserting the cliched bad boy from the wrong side of town that I didn't want to punch in the face upon immediately seeing. Double bonus points for not using the Christian girl character as the Bart Simpson once said "the quiet religious guy who ends up going crazy." She just changes a bit, and does stuff, but no crazy-crazy.

I honestly wanted this movie to be better, and was kinda surprised that people were criticizing it for things that I totally did not see as a problem in the movie, and were praising stuff that I had problems with.

For instance, more than a few critics said something about lingering race issues and touchy race issues. Which confusing the crap out of me. Yes, the invaders are Asian, but there is no demonizing of them as The Other based on race. They are bad guys because they are invaders. Period. Hell, they even went to the trouble of saying it was a Coalition of Nations just to avoid saying China or North Korea. And one of the main heroes of is Asian, so, what racial issues? Granted, I did like one person's suggestion to make the invaders New Zealanders, just because that would have been a good twist, but yeah, did not see an issue here.

And for some strange reasons, people went out of their way to praise the action sequences. Um, do critics in Australia have no access to Tarrantino flicks? Do they just get the shitty direct to DVD knockoffs starring Nick Stahl, cast offs from Starship Troopers and the other Wilson brother? The action was actually the weakest part of this movie.
 
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Matt Wiser

Agreed: the action was the weakest part of the movie. If there's a sequel, hopefully that will be remedied. It's obvious,though, when the bad guys have AKs and fly J-10s, who they really are. Even the armor shown rolling on the bridge looks like some of what's been displayed at parades in Beijing-and Pyongyang.

If they had a decent director who could put together great action sequences, it'd be higher up the rating scale. It's a good premise: it could've been so much better, though.
 

MerryPrankster

About the racial angle, I've only seen the trailer, but isn't the Asian guy dating a white girl? I saw what looked like an Asian guy and a white girl making out.

(It's pretty hard to be all "Yellow Peril" with said Yellow Peril going after Da White Women--and their attentions being appreciated--unless you're really hard-core about "it's not race, it's culture.")

Good to hear it's at least airing somewhere in the U.S. I wonder when we'll see the DVD?
 

Matt Wiser

Not sure about the DVD here, but it'll be on Showtime during August. If you have cable or satellite, and you have Showtime as part of your package, it'll be there.
 
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