Ever since it was announced that a remake of the 1984 piece of popcorn entertainment that was “Footloose” was under production
The answer is no, absolutely not.
Nonetheless, “Footloose” has been remade, and the result is as close to decent as the original.
The storyline is basically copied line for line and shot for shot from the original, except the writers made some changes and additions that mostly worsen the film. The remake storyline makes the movie feel more outdated than the original did.
“Footloose” begins with high school teenagers dying in a car accident — an incident that causes public dancing to be banned within the small Georgia town of Bomont. This unfortunate accident prompts the town council, which includes the prominent Rev. Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid), whose son was one of the teenagers killed, to impose an injunction against dancing and loud music while also establishing a curfew for the youth.
Professional dancer and gymnast Kenny Wormald plays Ren MacCormack, the new kid from Boston who repeatedly gets into trouble because he’s unfamiliar with the town’s rules. Wormald definitely is a better cast choice for the remake than Kevin Bacon was for the original because Wormald doesn’t require a dance double. But he does lack Bacon’s star appeal.
After making new friends, including comic relief Willard (Miles Teller) and Moore’s rebellious daughter Ariel (“Dancing with the Stars’” Julianne Hough), Ren becomes well-informed about Bomont’s laws and immediately objects. He decides to fight against the prohibition far too late in the story by suggesting a dance.
The storyline may be ridiculous, but it also refuses to cover some of its holes, most notably the banishment of dancing and the curfew. For a town that allegedly has its youngsters on lockdown, there’s a lot of public dancing, property destruction, curfew breaking and brawling, with no consequences falling upon the teens.
“Hustle & Flow” (2005) and “Black Snake Moan” (2007) director Craig Brewer already seemed like an odd choice to direct this energetic, charismatic film, considering his past films were darker and grittier. Under his direction, “Footloose” contains the same shamelessly campy feel as the original, but Brewer fails to give the material from the original some emotional grounding.
Though Brewer tries to remain faithful to the original story, the changes and additions into the story only weaken the film and add to the story’s overall silliness. Case in point, a preposterous school bus demolition derby replaces the tractor race from the original film.
Hough shows star potential. Her pretty blue eyes and bouncing booty get a lot of screen time as she struts her stuff while dancing. Her character definitely contains more definition when compared to Lori Singer’s Ariel as the audience sees a distraught girl beneath her rebellious nature. Unfortunately for Hough, her emotional depth is too limited for her to truly handle the more challenging dramatic scenes.
The most entertaining moments within the film occur when the characters demonstrate their skilled dance moves. Brewer modernized the dance scenes with the characters booty-poppin’ and break dancing to bass-thumping hip-hop, especially in the scene where the teenagers are dancing in front of the burger hangout.
In fact, this movie would have benefitted from more of these foot-tapping moments and less unconvincing drama.
Unfortunately, these dance scenes aren’t well-edited. Plus, the line dancing scene doesn’t exactly scream out the film’s themes of rebellion and freedom.
“Footloose” may flaunt great dancing talent, a great message and faithfulness to the 1984 original, but it’s still a witless, pointless remake that would better serve as an ABC Family or MTV basic cable film.