It’s time to kick-off your Sunday shoes and cut “Footloose” once again because the remake of the 1984 film that launched Kevin Bacon’s career has danced it’s way onto Blu-ray and DVD.
Not only is this movie a remake, but it’s an updated, present-day version of the original story. This time the setting is a small town in Georgia (the original took place in the Midwest). Newcomer Kenny Wormald plays Ren McCormack, a high school senior who comes to town to live with his aunt and uncle after his mother dies. He’s from Boston, was on the gymnastics team at his old school and loves to dance. Ren soon discovers that this new town has laws against playing loud music and dancing in public, due to a fatal car accident that took the lives of five students three years earlier.
The town’s minister (played nicely by Dennis Quaid) is the leader of the anti-dancing movement. He has a daughter, Ariel, (‘Dancing with the Stars’ Julianne Hough). His son was one of the kids killed in the crash. Ren takes an interest in Ariel and he becomes fast friends with Will, who becomes his goofy side-kick. But Ren’s #1 goal is, of course, to get the laws preventing the teenagers from having fun changed so they can all dance again.
Obviously this is about as silly a storyline as you can get: Will the kids get to dance? It certainly doesn’t make for much dramatic tension. Because of this just about everything in the film seems a bit forced. Maybe 27 years ago this issue had people sitting on the edge of their seats, but not in 2011.
The most surprising thing for me when I saw “Footloose” in the theater was the amount of dancing there is in the movie. I avoided watching the original (until I saw this one), but I knew there were some dance scenes. But there’s so much of it here that at times I thought I was watching another “Step Up” film. There’s even some country line dancing, which I didn’t think people did anymore, even in Georgia (I’ve since been corrected).
Wormald is very likeable in this iconic role, though fans of Bacon and the ’84 film will probably not like him. Hough is fine as Ariel, except that she’s way too old to be playing a high school senior. Andie McDowell has a small but strong role as Quaid’s wife.
“Footloose” is rated PG-13 for adult language and content, and teen drug and alcohol use. It’s appropriate for teens and up. The plot is what it is and the editing, at times, is pretty choppy (including in the climactic scene that’s missing several minutes), but the characters are nicely developed, the performances are solid and the music is great, including new versions of all the classics from the original soundtrack.
On “The Official Kid Critic Report Card“, “Footloose” gets a C+.
I give the producers credit for going with the unknown Wormald. Originally Zac Efron was cast in the Kevin Bacon role but he apparently felt that he’s outgrown these type of parts.