Footloose Review

Another remake, I’ve lost count of how many that is for the year but it seems like there’s at least two remakes every month which I think borderlines on ridiculous.  The 80′s always seems to be the decade most ripe for the remake to strike.  I don’t know why that is, I would think that since there are six decades or so of cinema before the 80′s began there would plenty of older material that today’s audiences aren’t familiar with to rob from.  This particular remake might be the Pandora’s Box that Hollywood has been waiting for; now that the floodgates have been opened on 80′s teen films like Footloose how long will it take before other more beloved 80′s movies get the remake treatment?  Dirty Dancing has already been announced, Red Dawn is awaiting a firm release date in 2012, what’s going to be next… Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, or maybe Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?  Nothing is sacred in Hollywood and the best we can hope for is if they are going to shove remake after remake down our throats that they at least make them watchable and not just soulless money makers created for the Justin Bieber fans of the world.

The plot of Footloose should seem very familiar to anyone that’s seen the 1984 film starring Kevin Bacon. For the most part this remake stays very true to the original film’s story of Ren McCormack who moves from a big city to a small town where dancing is against the law. Ren quickly makes some new friends because of his wining personality but also finds himself at odds with some of his town’s inhabitants including the town Reverend, the High School Principal, and the ex-boyfriend of the Reverend’s daughter who Ren stole away. Eventually Ren decides that the anti-dancing law needs to be brought down and enlists his friends to help him do it because dancing is an important part of life supposedly.  The plot of Footloose is still pretty silly; it was silly in 1984 and it’s silly in 2011 but it does have a foothold in reality. It might surprise you to know that there are real towns in America even now that have outlawed dancing but I never take for granted how stupid people can be especially when a mob mentality takes over. Who would have thought an entire film about teens fighting a dancing ban would have spawned not one film but two? Never-the-less there’s something charming about the idea which has undoubtedly led to the original film’s continuing success 25+ years after its release.

So how does the 2011 Footloose stack up against the original? Pretty well I’m surprised to say. If you hated the original film you’re not going think much of this film either. That cuts both ways however; if you enjoyed the original the remake doesn’t give you many reasons to hate it especially considering how many scenes play out with exact same dialogue as the original.  There are changes though and some work better than others, here are a few examples:

• Right off the bat we’re treated to a brief scene that explicitly breaks down what happened to lead to the dancing ban.
• I think the scene was unnecessary and panders down to the audience, sometimes things are better left to the audience’s imagination.
• The remake is set in rural Georgia instead of a town in an unnamed mid-western state.
• I think the move to Georgia was race motivated. The original film had absolutely no black characters that I can recall whereas the remake is much more diverse to the point of changing two characters from Caucasian to African-Americans. There’s also a large amount of hip-hop influence in both the music and the dancing.
• Ren’s family dynamic significantly changed both in regard to why he’s living with his Uncle’s family and in how he’s treated by his family.
• The changes made to the character of Ren’s Uncle were for the most part very successful. The role went from my least favorite in the original to one of favorites in the remake.
• In a town that outlaws dancing they still allow a demolition derby to take place involving school buses.
• This seemed even more preposterous than the game of chicken they played with the large tractors in ’84.
• The ’84 Footloose dives a little further into the idea of censorship (i.e. the book burning scene) where Reverend Moore finally sees the panic and hysteria that he help create. The ’11 version glosses over this aspect of the film almost completely.
• Sadly I think the exclusion of this subplot hurts the film quite a bit. I didn’t buy the Reverend’s turnaround in the final act as much without those scenes. They did try and work a new angle for the Reverend’s change of heart that was related to Ren’s family but it didn’t work for me as well.
• Ariel isn’t quite as “loose” as she was in the original.
• White washing her to the point where she’s almost innocent instead of being a rebellious slut doesn’t make her transformation back to a “good” girl quite as dramatic.

A lot of aspects of the original film remain mostly untouched. Ren is still rocking the skinny tie, Ariel still rocks her red boots, Williard is still a country bumpkin, and Rusty still has a face that resembles a horse. While every detail of the original characters isn’t represented, the spirit of those characters is respected. There aren’t any major changes made that aren’t literally skin deep (skin color joke). A lot of the dialogue is untouched and where it does differ from the ’84 version they still try to get the same point across. It’s hard to dislike the updated Footloose when they went to as much effort as they did to make a film that honors the original.

The remake isn’t without its faults however. I think fans of the original film will be upset by the changes to the music. Most, if not all, of the original songs from the ’84 Footloose are sampled in the remake but none of them with the exception of Kenny Loggin’s title song make it into the film untouched. I’m not sure if it would have been better to use completely new music and ignore the original soundtrack or reuse the original music. Sampling the original music probably seemed like a good idea on paper but I feel like it turned into a situation where you try and please everyone while actually pleasing no one. As I mentioned earlier there’s a strong hip-hop influence to the film but it is balanced out by a good amount of country music. Rock music is woefully unrepresented which I find strange considering how much rock music influenced the original soundtrack. The strange combination seems like another effort to please the masses by trying to attract an audience from two wildly different genres of music. It didn’t work for me especially since I’m not a fan of either type of music but their target audience might be more accepting of the hip-hop/country hybrid thing they have going on in this film. All of the dancing was well choreographed but some scenes left me feeling like I was watching Stomp the Yard or one of the Step Up films. Once again the target audience of Footloose is probably going to enjoy that style of dancing more than me but I’m sure fans of the original film will shake their head and mutter “What the fuck?” The last thing I wanted to say about the music isn’t a complaint but just a question about how important the music is to the success of the film. When the original Footloose was released MTV was only a few years old but the music and music videos played a huge role in the film’s success. The Footloose soundtrack helped sell people on seeing the movie and movie helped sell the soundtrack plus all the music videos and the songs getting a lot of airtime on the radio. I don’t think this film will get that type of help even though this film is an MTV Films Production. MTV music channel barely plays music anymore and record sales aren’t what they used to be. I think this movie will have to find its success based more on its merits as a standalone film than on the success of its soundtrack.

‘11’s Footloose differs a lot from the original when you think about what kind of actors were cast in each film. Instead of going with a lead actor that could learn to dance ‘11’s Footloose cast a dancer that could act. Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough are both dancers first actors second. Wormald pulls off his role much more convincingly than Hough. By no means is Kenny going to set the world on fire with his acting ability but he’s not terrible to the point of making the film unwatchable. They didn’t ask him to do too much; the Boston accent you’ll hear is his own since he’s actually from Boston. How does he compare to Kevin Bacon? Not very well in all honesty but they could have done a lot worse especially since this is his first major film role. Julianne Hough’s performance as Ariel is a different story entirely. She has the emotional range of wet paper sack filled with newspapers and her typical facial expression reminds me of Droopy the Basset Hound from the old MGM cartoons. I’m guessing Ryan Seacrest called in a couple favors to get her the job because I don’t think even the best casting couch sex could have landed her that job. Replacing the late, great Chris Penn in the role of Willard is his complete doppelganger Miles Teller. I don’t know how many times Teller must have watched Penn’s performance but he absolutely nailed it. I’m still going to say that I liked Penn’s portrayal of Willard more but Teller was very funny and a pleasant surprise. Rounding out the cast of kids is Ziah Colon replacing Sarah Jessica Parker as Rusty. If they were trying to find another girl that reminded the audience of what it looks like when a horse and human have a child together than they succeeded in spades. I’m dumbfounded this girl got cast, did they sit in the boardroom at Paramount and say “OK, SJP played Rusty in the original so we need to find another girl that the audience will want to give a nice brushing to before putting the saddle on and riding her down the track.”

The adult cast is headed up by Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell, Ray McKinnon, and Kim Dickens. If you’re a Deadwood fan you’ll recognize McKinnon and Dickens from that show. I thought McKinnon was especially great in the role of Ren’s Uncle Wes and Dicken’s was just fine as his Aunt Lulu. Quaid and MacDowell play Ariel’s parents; MacDowell’s portrayal of Vi is somewhat wasted in such a small role and is given little to do but look worried and tell Reverend Moore that he’s out of touch. I wasn’t terrible impressed with Quaid’s performance as Reverend Moore either. I didn’t think he brought much to the role and was outclassed by John Lithgow’s performance in the original. I never bought in to Quaid’s religious ideology like I did with Lithgow plus he isn’t given as much to do so I never felt like he had as much influence over the town as the original Reverend had. Like with all remakes there are going to be constant comparisons between the casts and you might feel completely different than I do about the how successful the remake’s casting was versus the original cast. If I had to give a letter grade to each film’s cast I would say the original cast earned a solid A while the remake would earn a respectable C+. Ren, Willard, and Ren’s Aunt and Uncle are all decent to improvements; I would consider Reverend Moore and Vi to be a wash; Ariel and Rusty are both definite step backwards comparatively.

It might surprise you to know that Footloose is directed by Craig Brewer. If that name doesn’t ring a bell don’t feel bad because it’s been a while since I’ve seen his name attached to anything either. For those of you not in the know he is the director of Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan. I’ll give you moment to let that sink in… OK so that now that you’ve thought that over for a few seconds what do you think? If you’re like me I thought it was a bit bizarre as well.  Compared to his previous films Footloose is a lighthearted romp  that never gets into the dark territory and disturbing territory of his other works.  Brewer has a good eye and he puts it to good use because Footloose has a better look it to it than most films aimed at teens.

As I’ve said near the beginning of this review it’s hard to dislike Footloose.  It tries hard to stay true to the tone of the original film but it’s not afraid to try and update the look and sound to appeal to a younger audience.  Are they entirely successful?  No, some of the song updates fall a bit flat, some of the casting decisions were very poor, and some of the script changes from the original film didn’t work but overall compared to most remakes Footloose is a success.  In the end I still think Footloose is an unnecessarily remake but it succeeds more than it fails so I’m forced to give a passing score.