FOOTLOOSE
Stars: Kenny Wormald, Julianna Hough, Dennis Quaid | Written by Craig Brewer, Dean Pitchford | Directed by Craig Brewer
After losing a director and two actors, Paramount’s remake of the 1984 musical-drama Footloose is here. In terms of plot, it’s faithful remake, but updated to make a little more sense today. Fans of the original might take issue with certain changes, but for the generation that’s too young to have seen it, it’s definitely one of the better dance movies we’ve seen in a while.
The plot is pretty much the same, but the details have changed. Five high school seniors of small town Bomont have fatal car accident following a party. Follow the accident public displays of dancing by minors is banned, a change Reverend Shaw Moore (Quaid) pushes for. Three years later, Ren (Wormald) moves from Boston to Bomont to live with his aunt and uncle after his mother dies of leukemia. As someone who loves to dance, Ren decides to change the law, and put on a proper prom for the seniors of Bomont High School.
The main attraction of a film like this, particularly a remake, is whether the dancing is any good. Both Wormald and Julianna Hough have dance backgrounds, which probably played a big part in them getting the roles. Because of how well they can dance, it allows there to be a lot more focus on the dancing in the dance scenes. It makes the remake feel much more like a musical than the original, as rather than a scene where people dance well, we get proper dance numbers. Apart from the main song, all the other tracks are new, though a couple are just different versions of songs from the original.
Kenny Wormald also gives a decent performance in the scenes that require a little bit of acting. Changing where he’s from (originally the character comes from Chicago) might have been because Wormald is originally from Massachusetts (same state as Boston). The Boston accent quite tough to get passed as a non-American, so scenes in which he doesn’t speak are much easier to enjoy. Julianna also does well as Ariel, and she has more to do in terms of acting. The character is a fair bit more rebellious than she was in 1984, but unfortunately that doesn’t really work. The extremes of her rebellion don’t seem justified, which could be down to the writers or a lot being cut down in editing. There are brief mentions of how it started when her brother died and her father, the Reverend, started getting stricter, but we’re not really shown that side, so when Hough is giving her emotional performance, because of what we have seen and what we’re supposed to just ‘get’, you actually don’t feel sorry for her. And I’m certain I wasn’t supposed to think ‘well, she had it coming.’
It is by no means a perfect film, but it is a nice change from how generic dance films are becoming. There are plenty of nods to the original (the car, opening titles, some costumes), which fans of Kevin Bacon’s version will appreciate. They’ve done a good job in selected songs, which should attract the newer generation. It could have benefited from having slightly more familiar faces as the leads, but hopefully people will be willing to give them a chance. Most importantly, it’s enjoyable. It’s quite flawed, but nothing that cannot be forgiven.
If you can deal with loud music and dancing, or even better if it’s your kind of thing, Footloose will be great fun. The film is released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday 6th February.
