As I walked into the recently released Footloose, a remake of the 1984 dance classic, I expected three things: cheesy teenage romance scenes, a mediocre plot and some killer dancing.
The original movie starred the curiously charismatic Kevin Bacon as Ren MacCormack, a Chicago teen who moves to a small country town where dancing and rock music has been outlawed, thanks to the town’s overbearing and righteous pastor, Shaw Moore (John Lithgow). Moore has a daughter, Ariel (Lori Singer), who is the town rebel and, not so shockingly, MacCormack’s eventual love interest.
Together, MacCormack, Ariel and the town’s other teens manage to win over the town board and restore the delight of dancing back to their sleepy little town.
The 1984 version irked me in that it often was trying to deliver a serious moral or religious message while simultaneously being exceedingly frivolous. The 2011 version didn’t have as much of a problem with this as it never tried to be anything but vapid. This remake, as expected, followed essentially the same plot, yet lacked the religious contemplation that was in the original.
Instead, it seemed to focus a bit more on Ariel, who is played by Dancing with the Stars alum Julianne Hough. While I appreciate that this portrayal of Ariel had more dimension than the original, Hough herself came off more attention-needy and trite than brooding in a role that was supposed to be about a young girl’s struggle with depression after her brother was killed in a car crash on his way home from a dance party, which (in the remake) is also the reason for the adoption of all the town’s restrictive laws.
Needless to say, the actor stepping into Bacon’s shoes, Kenny Wormald, had some large shoes to fill, as Ren MacCormack has become an iconic figure of the 80s since the original film’s release. While Wormald had a charming smile and the moves to play the part, he lacked the essence of Bacon’s Ren. Wormald and Bacon may have delivered the same quick-talker lines, but Wormald’s lacked the authenticity of the misunderstood new-kid-on-the-block that Bacon had nailed in his performance.
The underdog of the film was Dennis Quaid, as the well-meaning, yet insensitive Reverend Moore. As the most seasoned veteran among the cast, Quaid pulls off a compelling role as a preacher struggling between what he believes religiously and the reality of his town’s situation.
Quaid also delivered a strong backhand hit to Hough, which proved to be one of the more exciting moments of the film. That just shows how anticlimactic most of the scenes actually were.
However, while the movie lacked the classic’s depth, it exceeded my original expectations in terms of how entertaining the dance sequences were. While the original feels more like a movie about a dance, the remake feels like a real dance movie, where people break out into organized moves at any given time. I was impressed with the film’s choreography, which combined the best of the original’s 80s moves with modern dance (including krumping) and good old-fashioned country dancing (it is set in Georgia, after all).
