Ok, name the movie: a group of high school students avoids an invading army as the rest of their town is rounded up and put in camps, they escape into the wilderness, managing to evade search teams, surviving off the land until they decide it’s time to fight back, and they start a series of guerilla style raids against the enemy.  Oh, and it all takes place in a small town in Australia.

Aha, I bet that last bit threw you right?  If you’re in the US (and I guess if you’re old enough to remember) you were probably thinking Red Dawn from 1984.  But now, there’s another movie that matches that description – Tomorrow, When the War Began.

But that’s not to say that it’s a ripoff of Red Dawn (at least not directly), it’s actually based on the novel of the same name by John Marsden, which has sold over 3 million copies, and is the first in the series which now numbers seven books.

The movie did fairly well in its native Australia when it was released in 2010, but it’s only now getting a US release, albeit fairly limited, but luckily, Honolulu is on the list, so I was able to go check it out last night.

I went in with fairly low expectations, but it turned out to actually be pretty good.  It did evoke serious Red Dawn deja vu, but the actors were all charismatic and fun to watch, and there were some decent action sequences.

It wasn’t amazing, but it was good, and I’d definitely watch the inevitable sequel.  And if you’d like to give it a try also, it turns out that the limited theatrical release won’t be a hurdle for you because the movie is already available on a variety of streaming and download movie services including Amazon VOD, Facebook, YouTube, and iTunes.

If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how it compares to the will-it-ever-be-released remake of Red Dawn, which is currently scheduled for November, 2012.