FOOTLOOSE (M)Director: Craig Brewer
Stars: Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell
Screening: general release
Rating: ***
LET’S not delude ourselves: the original Footloose was a pretty crummy movie.
You hear it called a classic but, please, Louise, pull me off of my knees!
It was corn-fed hokum interrupted by bursts of catchy pop and energetic dancing.
Sure, it will always hold a special place in the heart of those of us who survived being a teenager in the 1980s.
Like Tom Cruise in white socks and tightie-whities sliding across the loungeroom floor to Bob Seger’s Old Time Rock and Roll in Risky Business (1983), Kevin Bacon in blue jeans and sneakers leaping acrobatically around an abandoned warehouse to Moving Pictures’s Never in Footloose (1984) remains a defining pop culture image from the decade that also gave us Flashdance, Fame and Dirty Dancing.
But Kevin Bacon in a skinny tie as the dancing James Dean/Rebel Without A Cause? Really?
And the kid is angry so he’s going to dance about it in an abandoned warehouse? Really?
Footloose was always more about the music and the moves than the movie.
You know the score: Kenny Loggins belting out that devious ear-worm of a title track, Bonnie Tyler Holding Out For a Hero and Deniece Williams wailing Let’s Hear It For The Boy.
Now, almost 30 years later, the remake no one asked for turns out to be the same as the original: a crummy, corny, cheesy coming-of-age cliche powered by the same catchy tunes and much vigorous bump and grind.
And, I’m a bit ashamed to say, I actually quite enjoyed it. Yes, it’s unnecessary but it’s also pert and frisky fun.
If only the cinemas would clear a bit of space down the front to let everybody cut loose!
After High School Musical’s Zac Efron bowed out, newcomer Kenny Wormald (a former member of Justin Timberlake’s concert dance crew) takes the Bacon role as Ren, the new kid in Bomont, Tennessee (relocated from Utah in the original).
Ren’s a former gymnast who wears his Lou Diamond Phillips hair mussed just so, the collar of his leather jacket turned up and, yes, a skinny tie.
Ren immediately catches the eye of Ariel, a minx in cowboy boots, short skirts and midriff tops, who just so happens to be the wild-child daughter of the local preacher (Dennis Quaid in the John Lithgow part).
Ariel (Julianne Hough in for Lori Singer) ditches her bad-news boyfriend to pursue Ren but he’s more interested in challenging the Bomont bylaws banning “lewd and lascivious public dancing”.
Much lewd and lascivious public dancing ensues.
All the bits you may remember (or not) from the original movie are re-done: the old doing-up-the-rusty-VW music montage (with iPod instead of Walkman); Ren racing Ariel’s lug-nut boyfriend in a smash-up derby; and Ren teaching his new comic-relief redneck buddy Willard (Miles Teller) how to bust a move.
And, of course, we head to an abandoned factory for Ren to dance out his frustrations in white singlet, blue jeans and sneakers – this time to the White Stripes’ Catch Hell Blues.
The chemistry of the lovebirds is not the slightest bit convincing, despite the matching gleam of their smiles, much brazen eyeing off and the eventual pretty-as-a-picture first kiss at sunset.
The dialogue is vintage cheese.
Ariel’s knucklehead boyfriend tells Ren: “You’re in my world now, boy”.
Ariel confides to Ren: “No one wants to see Bomont in their rear-view more than me”.
Ariel’s father scolds her: “Your behaviour has been atrocious young lady”.
Ariel’s knucklehead boyfriend thinks so too: “Preacher’s daughter, my ass”.
Ariel’s mum (Andie MacDowell) thinks her hubby and daughter clash because they are just so alike: ‘‘You both deal with your pain in extremes”.
But Ariel’s daddy doesn’t want much: “I want what every parent wants: for my kids to come home safe”.
There are cloying speeches about kids making a difference and parents trusting their kids and even chapter and verse quoted from the Bible.
Director Craig Brewer mixes ethnic flavours into his supporting cast and, in a nod to the Step-Up movies, a scene of hip-hop gyrating is added.
There’s even some line-dancing (to accentuate that Southern fried flavour, y’all).
Many extreme close-ups ensue of Hough’s tush swivelling vigorously in tight denim cut-offs.
Sadly, the new Footloose is not showing in 3D. Not sure what they were thinking at Paramount with that call.
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