Bad Acting + Terrible Remixes = Disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (19 August 2012)

I had such high hopes for this movie. I was excited by the beginning, tragic explanation of what happened to make the townsfolk think it was a good idea to create a string of very strict laws. That's where the excitement ended. Aside from a few entertaining scenes, i.e. Willard learning how to dance with a bunch of cute little girls, it was one confused "Seriously!?!" moment after another.
In trying to stay true the the original, they made it laughably bad. If you're going to do a remake, make it original so it isn't compared so closely to the original. I heard the exact same lines, said with less feeling and horribly off timing. I saw great scenes replaced with ridiculous substitutions, like riding a tractor 20 feet to the buses they were about to race. I was devastated to hear how the songs from the original soundtrack had been thrown into a blender and murdered mercilessly, like "I Need a Hero" being made into an ultra-slow ballad.
And the dancing... come on people. The story is supposed to be about regular teenagers dancing to their music their way. Have you ever been to a dance club to see how teenagers dance? Have you ever seen a bunch of kids dancing their asses off with the music coming from car speakers at a park in New York? I have. The drive-in scene was close, but as far as I'm concerned, Wormald used way too many Broadway moves for these scenes to be believable.
As for the acting, I think Hough did slightly better than Singer, but Wormald was not nearly so memorable as Kevin Bacon was, especially when he was speaking to the town council. However, Miles Teller did do an excellent job of playing the slightly goofy, lovable Willard. Dennis Quaid was definitely not the right choice to play a preacher, but I loved Ray McKinnon and Kim Dickens as Ren's aunt and uncle. They were great.
Bottom Line - If they hadn't tried so hard to stick to the original, if they hadn't butchered the original music so thoroughly, and if they hadn't cast dancers as actors, it would have been much, much better.