Watching Craig Brewer’s remake of Footloose was a bit of a strange experience for me. With just a few slight changes here and there, this supposedly “new” Footloose is more a re-enactment than a remake, resulting in some sort of “bizarro world” re-telling of the 1984 original.
Among the film’s few changes, the story is set in the fictional small town of Bomont, Georgia and at the beginning of the picture we bear witness to events only mentioned in the original as a group of kids leave a party where they’ve been cutting loose, drinking and ultimately end up in a head-on collision with a semi. Despite the change in setting, the folks of Bomont react all the same, passing a new set of laws setting a curfew and banning, chief above all else… dancing.
Flash forward three years and into town struts Boston native Ren MacCormack (Kenny Wormald), a teenager who watched his mother die of leukemia and has come to this small town to live with his aunt and uncle. Little does this music lovin’, dancing gymnast know, loud music and dancing have been banned. It’s a lesson he’s quick to learn after he’s pulled over in his VW bug for playing his music too loud, and he learns the rest of the story soon enough from his new friend Willard (Miles Teller), the film’s comedy relief and one true saving grace.
Just as in the original, Ren still falls in love with the local preacher’s daughter, Ariel (Julianne Hough), and her father (Dennis Quaid) still doesn’t approve. She still likes to dance just as much as Ren, likes to play chicken with oncoming trains and can definitely take a punch.
Additionally, Ren and Willard still like to talk about wet t-shirt contests at the car wash, Willard still needs to learn how to dance and games of chicken with tractors are replaced by figure eight school bus races. I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Director Craig Brewer has said this film is more of an homage to the original than anything else and I guess for a modern audience that’s unaware of the first film that will work just fine. However, when the film is remade all the way down to the songs, such as “Holding Out for a Hero” turned into some kind of slow ballad, I begin to wonder why even make the effort?
This, of course, is a personal hang up, from the viewpoint of someone that has seen and enjoys the original movie and would prefer to see a new movie rather than an old one virtually copied shot-for-shot and song-for-song. Yet, to avoid being entirely dismissive, Miles Teller as Willard and Ray McKinnon as Ren’s Uncle Wes are both quite entertaining. Teller creates a far more comedic sidekick than Chris Penn did in the original and McKinnon has a solid bit of small town sarcasm and an addictive “aw-shucks” attitude that goes a long way.
Additionally, Craig Brewer knows how to have fun with a movie and there’s no doubt in his filmmaking talent. I won’t discount the film’s energy and the fun it’s attempting to have, but the fact it’s essentially the exact same movie as the original just left me cold.
I’m sure Brewer has something more inventive up his sleeve, especially considering we’re talking about the writer/director of Hustle and Flow and Black Snake Moan, and while bits of the Brewer that made those films can be found here, especially in the diverse cast and any time the sexual energy of dancing takes center stage, the film has no edge and no voice, which is due in large part to the fact the voice it’s using is the same voice we heard 27 years ago.
