From a reader:

Jonah,
I hate the Soviets as much as the next guy. Well, actually much, MUCH more
than the next guy since I actually had to live there for 25 years. Unlike
you, I actually took an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies
foreign and domestic (during my naturalization ceremony). And unlike you, I
actually voted for Milius (for NRA board). But I am less enthusiastic about
the “Red Dawn” than a lot of your readers.
1. The plot is just absolutely implausible and a lot of things don’t make
any sense.
2. Some sentiments are very boneheaded. Remember the scene where a Soviet
detachment tried to sneak upon Wolverines using a tracking device carried by
the mayor’s son? They were defeated and the captured prisoners executed. In
response to their mention of the Geneva Convention Patrick Swayze says
“Never heard of it”. That’s just a callous answer and a much better one
would explain that systemic Soviet violations of the Convention (depicted
earlier in the movie) legally made the Convention non-binding for the
American side too. Furthermore, when one of the Wolverines asks “What’s the
difference between us and them?”, Swayze replies “We live here”. This is
just monumentally stupid. By this logic in 1945 the Nazis were morally
superior to everybody else because they were fighting on their own
territory. I’m afraid this dialog will be repeated verbatim in the remake –
only the point will be made by the Taliban or by the Iraqi members of Al
Qaeda in Iraq.
3. I found the movie aesthetically grating in quite a few places. It
essentially plagiarizes some of the worst cliches from Soviet agitprop
movies. After you watch too many scenes of Soviet citizens singing The
Internationale right before the mass execution, the analogous scene in Red
Dawn just does not go down very well.
4. The movie manages to be kinda over the top and to present the Soviets as
cartoon villains while simultaneously failing to convey just how evil the
Soviets really were. Although in fairness I have to say that it is very hard
for any movie to portray apparatchiks quietly working in an office (even the
most notorious ones, like Eichmann) as being much more evil than military
officers.
Now, this observation is not particularly relevant, but I find it notable
that despite constantly producing very pervasive anti-American propaganda
the Soviets never (as far as I know) made a movie about a hypothetical
American invasion.