Movie review: Footloose (2011)

A remake of the 1984 musical-drama film, this 2011 rendition is the same story of passionate teenagers fighting for their rights in a strict, law-abiding town, but altered slightly to fit the boundaries of current times.

Here is the trailer for the remake:

I wanted to embed the youtube video for the original Footloose trailer but embedding is not allowed for that video! Here's the link if you guys are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaaYU-lZ3ac

Craig Brewer directs this remake and the main cast - Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, and Andie MacDowell - brought a whole new flavour to this movie, albeit some scenes being to cheesy for my liking.

The story starts with a group of teenagers dancing to "Footloose" - the original soundtrack. Five of them left after a long night of dancing and as they were driving past the bridge, the car crashed into a truck, killing all of them. The tragedy in the small town of Bomont was so sudden that Shaw Moore (played by Dennis Quaid), the reverend of the church in Bomont blamed the City Council and from then on set s curfew for those under 18 and banned dancing and the playing of loud rock music. Bobby Moore, one of the five who died in the accident, was Revered Moore's son.

Three years later, Ren McCormack (played by Kenny Wormald) came to Bomont, from Boston, to live with his uncle's family after his mother died from leukemia. He made friends with Willard Hewitt (played by Miles Teller) and Ren learned from Willard about the law on banned dancing and curfews. After a church session, Ren began to be attracted to Reverend Moore's rebellious daughter, Ariel Moore (played by Julianne Hough) who was then attached to a racer, Chuck Cranston. After a night of illegal dancing, Chuck grew jealous of Ren and hence began taunting him. Reverend Moore distrusted Ren and prohibited Ariel from seeing him, but he realised that Ren was not that bad after all when he stuck by Ariel after she was physically abused by Chuck. At the same time, Ren was also creating a petition against Bomont's law of banned dancing and rock music.

The story ends with the petition being rejected by the council, but with Bomont's High School Senior Prom successfully held at a cotton mill outside of town. Revered Moore realised he could not control the teenagers too tightly and even though the petition was rejected, he allowed the prom to be organised.

Do I like this remake? It's fine but I prefer the original, and for someone who has yet to watch the original and has only seen the trailer of the original movie, that's saying something.

There was a rumour that the role of Ren McCormack was going to be played by Zac Efron, but I'm glad that it was played by Kenny Wormald instead, because Zac Efron looks too pretty to be Ren and Kenny Wormald has that John Travolta vibe which is perfect for the movie. The female lead, Julianne Hough, will be the typical feminists' nightmare. The perfect body, the perfect face, the perfect dancing skills with a tendency for bad boys. Tell me which hard-core feminist will not have an uproar over that? Fluff aside, Julianne Hough really looks too much like Jennifer Aniston!

Both Kenny Wormald and Jennifer Aniston - oops! I meant Julianne Hough - are professional dancers and so I am in no position to question their dancing abilities. I find it quite fresh though that they are incorporating line-dancing with hip-hop and modern jazz all into one!

The movie was predictable and cheesy at some parts, especially with the many close-ups of Ren smirking or smiling away at Ariel. Once or twice is good and impactful, but after that everything turns into humour. I also hated the abrupt ending of the show. I was quite shocked that the movie ended at that point in time because I wanted more dancing! That brings me to another point - I want more dancing scenes!

The highlight of the movie will be the supporting role of Willard Hewitt. Awkward, funny and incredibly cute, this role just left me laughing loudly after his every sentence. If you ask me which dancing scene I liked, that will be the starting scene in which the focus was on the feet of the dancers (though I question the shot whereby a female's crotch was filmed together with the feet). That scene was innovative, apt and fun at the same time!

Overall, I will give this movie two thumbs up for its great, but too few, dancing scenes. Acting-wise, the veterans are killing it all with their superb acting chops. I will watch this movie again solely because of the dancing and not the storyline.

Disclaimer: I was given the change to watch this movie for free, courtesy to omy.sg. This movie premiers on 26th October 2011 in Singapore.