I have never seen the original. I also don't have a strong incentive to. The trailer to this movie looked ridiculous, almost like an effort to stir up patriotic fervor.
In a strange way, the movie is tragic. The original may have been more aggressively right-wing fantasy, but after the US occupation of Iraq, this version just reflects how terrible taking over another country is.
The first thing that bothered me about the way the movie was scripted was the issue of time passage. We get a few montages to cover the training time, but as far as I could tell, they trained over the course of an afternoon, or a few hours. They waste ammo. It's only occasionally that we get some hints about how much time has passed, but it never seems to be clear.
Ambush sequences are inherently exciting. It's nice to see strategy played out successfully, and that plays nicely. The movie also ends on a brief high point, a raid on a prison camp. This is in contrast to most of their raids, which usually seem formulated to just cause chaos.
I found myself seriously conflicted about this movie. I liked the premise, but I wound up feeling like I shouldn't be enjoying this. It reminded me of Tomorrow, When the War Began (which I watched back in 2011, and doesn't have a separate entry) which was a similar idea. There are a few things that I preferred about that approach. First, the kids aren't being instructed by a Marine. This changes the story into a much more patriotic one, rather than creating an equivalency between the military and patriotism. The other thing is that the invading force remains a mystery for most of the picture, which removes most of the political considerations from the story.
I'm still finding it hard to explain how conflicted this made me feel. I don't know how much I could recommend it though. There's too much shaky-cam, and plenty of sequences set in the dark.
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