Trisha’s Take: Footloose review

Footloose

Directed by Craig Brewer
Starring Kenny Womald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Miles Teller
Rating: Not Available at time of Review

When I first heard almost two years ago that Paramount Pictures was going to produce a remake of the cult Kevin Bacon dance movie Footloose, that it wouldn’t have elaborate dance sequences, and that it would be an “edgier drama” than the original or the musical based off of it, I said that they were off their rocker:

Remember a little movie musical called West Side Story? You know, that one that’s based off of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and won 10 Academy Awards, including the one for Best Picture?

Well, that movie had racial discrimination, gang violence, death by knife, and a near-rape scene and yet also features some of the most elaborate and most demanding choreography ever seen on film, thanks to director Jerome Robbins and his cast of mostly Broadway veterans.

At the same time, however, I like to keep in mind that while yes, there really are very few original plots out there—and way too many tropes—as Multiplex creator Gordon McAlpin recently put it, a good movie is all in how it’s executed.

By the by, there will be plenty of spoilers for the plot of the original Footloose movie in this review; it’s been 27 years since it came out, for crying out loud. However, I will try like hell not to spoil exactly how the remake does things because I want you to be as pleasantly surprised as I was when I saw it. Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: Footloose review”