Footloose

With the plethora of remakes over the last few years, it was easy to compare and contrast to judge whether the reboot was worth the time and effort. With "Fright Night" for example, it was fun to discover the nods to the original while appreciating the updates to the story line for modern audiences. With a film like "Friday the 13th," the film was more of a direct reboot, but also updated for audiences who have become a bit more cynical.

With "Footloose," you have a different animal entirely. While the original was definitely a product of its generation, how do you update a movie that is intrinsically silly (dancing is outlawed!) and make it relevant for modern audiences? The answer the filmmakers came to is: you don't.

"Footloose" as re-done for 2011 is an odd bird because it's not really a remake or a reboot, it's pretty much exactly the same film. The primary credited screenwriter is Dean Pitchford who wrote the original script, with director Craig Brewster taking second billing. Having seen the original dozens of times, I found I could recite the dialogue along with the characters because it's that close to the original.

So how do you judge one from the other? First, let's look at the film as it stands on its own. For the uninformed, the plot is relatively straightforward. Ren McCormick (newcomer Kenny Wormald) has just arrived in town with a James Dean strut and a history of pain from losing his mother to leukemia.

Ren moves in with his Uncle Wes (the amusing Ray McKinnon), Aunt Lulu (Kim Dickens) and their two little girls to spend his senior year in the small town of Bomont, Georgia. He gets a job at a cotton gin and, within what seems like only minutes, he has rebuilt a VW Beetle to tool around in. But sooner than you can cut loose, Ren is pulled over by a cop for playing his music too loud. You see, three years earlier there was an underage party with teenagers drinking and dancing and playing loud music. On the way home, five teens were hit head on by a Mack truck and killed. Because this is one of those small towns where no one is quite rational, the local minister, Rev. Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid), who lost his son to the accident, outlaws public dancing and loud music and institutes a curfew on anyone under the age of 18.

Ren isn't too fond of this rule, and when he develops a crush on the preacher's daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough), things are only going to get worse. At school, he befriends Willard (Miles Teller) a local-yokel who is in desperate need of some cool pills. But at the same time, he repeatedly gets in trouble for things he's not doing (drugs, fights, etc.).

Meanwhile, Ariel has become a wild child since the death of her brother and is carrying on with local wild boy Chuck Cranston (Patrick John Flueger). She is clearly trying to get under her daddy's skin, but her father doesn't seem to really notice which just makes Ariel act out even more.

Soon enough Ren, Ariel, Willard, and Willard's gal Rusty (Ziah Colon in the Sarah Jessica Parker role) have become a foursome, and Ren and Ariel start to fall for each other. But Ren, despite his too-cool-for-school swagger, is a good guy and is waiting for Ariel to clean up her act before he makes his move.

Things come to a head when Ren, fed up with the small town rules and getting in trouble for things he didn't do, decides to challenge the "no-dancing" ordinance because he wants to make an impact. In the meantime, relationships will be tested, truths will be revealed, and it will all culminate in a big dance in a warehouse.

The problems with the new version of "Footloose" are the same problems the original had--mainly, the core idea. A town where dancing is outlawed? Seriously? If you can get past that, as most of us did in the '80s, then the film is still a diverting pleasure. It's a half hour too long (just like the original), and the tone takes a dip around the sixty minute mark.

The film is saved, however, by winning performances, especially from Teller and Hough--the latter lights up the screen whenever she's on it. Wormald's Ren is a likeable character and your eyes are drawn to him, but the jury is out on whether this will make him a star like the role did for Kevin Bacon back in 1984.

The soundtrack for the film takes the songs from the original and alters them or gussies them up for today's audiences. Some of the originals are still used, most notably Denice Williams "Let's Hear It For The Boy," which is (again) played as Willard gets dancing tips from Ren. There's even a nod to the original music video when Willard starts shaking his booty while dressed in a football uniform.

The oddest choice however, is using the original Kenny Loggins theme song during the opening sequence. Kids are at a party dancing around a keg similarly to the opening of the original film and clearly singing to, what they would feel, is a classic song from the '80s. However, this is also the song they are singing at the top of their lungs when their car rams into the killer truck, making the poor Kenny Loggins' version of the song the catalyst for tragedy. Kind of an odd choice. In the end, when we get to hear the new version by Blake Shelton, I guess the point is that the kids have reclaimed the song as their own. Or is it a foretelling of things to come? Who knows? We freeze frame on happy dancers before that could ever happen.

"Footloose" circa 2011 is a well-made film. It's shot beautifully and the actors all do good work, although the kids fare better than the parents who all seem to want to giggle when they recite their lines. Certain sequences are almost identical to the original. Ren's angry dance through the warehouse is almost shot for shot the same, and even the dance at the end looks like it takes place in the same location.

It's somewhat cute that the costume designer copied the outfits from the final scene in the original and altered them slightly to give Hough and Wormald updated versions of the same clothes. These little moments are kind of sweet and reverential and I appreciated them. But when wondering if I would recommend it to be seen at the theatre? I don't know. It's really the exact same movie. You could save yourself a few bucks and watch the original.

Perhaps a new generation will fall in love with this update, and there is something sweetly innocent about it that is refreshing. Will it define a generation? No. Will it entertain for a few hours? Sure. Will it make stars out of Wormald and Hough? Only time will tell. More importantly, will it make you want to cut loose? FOOT... loose? Well... yeah. It kinda does. And, really--what's so wrong with that?