Hey guys! Welcome our honorary Mobster of the moment, Erin Tracht, who took time out to catch Craig Brewer’s Footloose remake for us. How did it turn out? Take it away, Erin….
Mobsters Rating:
Everybody cut Footloose! Diehard fans of the 1984 classic about teens fighting for the right to party (mainly dance in an old cotton gin mill) will be pleasantly surprised. The 2011 remake ain’t half bad, aside from a few scenes of dry-humping and cheeseball lines, for instance, “Country line dancing…it’s a white boy’s wet dream!”
New-comer to Hollywood, Kenny Wormald, actually plays a new-comer (Ren MacCormack) to Bomont, Tennessee. He wants to shake up the sleepy town, whose teens have been forced to city ordinances against dancing, loud music, and a 10pm curfew, ever since five teens tragically were killed in a car accident a few years prior. While believable in the role, Wormald’s Boston accent is “wicked awful”…but boy can he cut footloose! With just starting out, and being compared to Kevin Bacon, Wormald had some big dancing shoes to fill…so I’d say there are more like two or three degrees of separation instead of the average six.
His counterpart, actor Julianne Hough, plays Ariel, the minister’s daughter who is trying to dance her way to freedom from her father’s rules. Hough does a fine job of playing a tough girl role, but her dancing is way more provocative (aka slutty) than actress Lori Singer’s ever was.
Ariel’s father, played by Dennis Quaid, is a concerned, law-abiding minister who tries to control the Bomont community, but has the hardest time controlling those closest to him. Quaid is decent in this role, but honestly, I’ve never been much of a fan of his…to me, he’s replaceable.
The cast member that really knocked my socks off was Miles Teller, who plays redneck Williard, the boy who can’t dance worth a dime. The musical montage to “Let’s Hear it for the Boy” has the same effect it did a few decades ago…it warms your heart and gets your toes tapping (even the jolly old elf next to me risked spilling his popcorn for that scene!) Let’s hear it for that country boy who is adorable, fun-loving, and finally learns how to dance just in time for the big shindig!
The dancing is impecable and really makes you want to get off your seat, the same as it did in 1984 (although if you watched it when the classic first debuted, you might take a little longer to bust a move). More bumping and grinding to satisfy the teens of this generation, however, some of the classic moves remain.
A nostalgic, entertaining flick, but if you don’t see it until it comes out on DVD, you’ll still be able to boogie your way through life just fine.
First of all this 2011 movie is made for our generation, if it wasnt for this remake we wouldnt have known what “footloose” was. Im pretty sure that when you watched this movie in the 80′s you were on your 20′s as well so just let us watch OUR GENERATION’S current movie and stop disliking it just because it not the 80′s. Its a great movie, great cast great remake and first of all great acting.
The main problem with you’re argument Ricky is that Footloose isn’t “your” worthless lazy good for nothing generations movie. It’s a an exact clone of the original with worse actors. I will grant that the tramp from that TV dancing show has a nice dumper. More bad news champ your generation Footlose is the bowel loosing crap fest Step Up, Congrats on living down to that one. Even more bad news tiger the guy who wrote this article was still wearing underoos when the original came out.
Like real life you have failed at the internet.