A Fairly Decent Remake Somewhat Updated

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2017)

Ren and Ariel dance and fall in love in a town where dancing is illegal for minors! It follows the original "Footloose" scene-for-scene in many places but the remake has a lot of energy and the necessary climatic dance scene does not disappoint. Kevin Bacon's charisma in the 1984 original is substituted here for the charisma of Julianne Hough in 2011. Ren's athletic skills as a big-city high school gymnast are again, understated. Basically a "fish-out-of-water" city boy becomes the subject of vicious small town gossip and is blamed for just about everything. He is framed for possessing a "joint" and gets an undeserved bad reputation as a troublemaker. Most entertaining in a "Grease" sort-of-way, including racing action. The critics never get it right and many of the "users" didn't like the remake. It's got a pretty-good soundtrack but in 1984, yeah, it was better. In the original version, there was book-burning, and that stupid idea is thankfully not in the remake. Very good dancing by all and most of it is fun to watch with a bit of overacting here and there. It's actually based on a true-life story about a small town that banned teen-aged dancing after a high school prom tragedy. Most of the film was "made in Georgia" and at realistic-looking locations. Some will argue that a remake was unnecessary as it was a rather "minor" film to begin with. The "box office" was exceptionally good, for a remake.