“Point Break” is a remake of a 90s action/crime/surfer film that was directed by future Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”, “Zero Dark Thirty”) and starred Keanu Reeves and the late Patrick Swayze. It went on to earn Reeves the 1992 MTV Movie Award for “Most Desirable Male” and, for some reason, became a cult hit/guilty pleasure. In this 25-years-later version, the story has been modernized, but why any studio felt the need to finance this project will be one of the great mysteries of 2015.
The pitch meeting probably went something like this: “It’s a two-hour action film filled with footage of extreme sports stunts like the ones that teens and 20-year-olds watch over and over again on YouTube. We’ll cast a relatively unknown lead (Luke Bracey), but he’ll have his shirt off a lot for the ladies. We’ll attach a title to it that audiences are already familiar with. And we’ll release it on Christmas Day, so maybe those who get sold out of “Star Wars” will give it a shot.”
I reached my breaking point with “Point Break” early on, having to endure one of the first (of many) endless action stunt scenes. Surfing 100 ft. waves, snowboarding down steep slopes, climbing sheer rock walls without a rope – all of this must be incredibly exciting to do, but watching others do such daredevil acts, especially in a movie, is extremely boring. And the story: a young, hotshot, undercover FBI agent gets caught-up with a bunch of Robin Hood-esque criminals looking to find spiritual enlightenment by stealing and killing, is just as unappealing.
This movie is completely flat, formulaic and just plain mindless. There’s no suspense. We don’t care about the characters or what’s going to happen to them next, maybe because we already know what’s coming five or six scenes before they do. And the acting is gold medal level cornball, with chuckle-worthy dialogue and some of the goofiest facial expressions of the year. The only “rush” moviegoers will get from “Point Break” is when they rush to the exits after the appropriately ridiculous final scene – if they haven’t left before then.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Point Break” gets a D-.
Running Time: 114 min.