Average, Mediocre, Fine, OK and passable.

Rating: 5/10 (31 January 2016)

POINT Break Review – Jack Fitzpatrick . In general, point break is sort of a mess. The characters are empty vessels, their motivations are sort of silly and how we are meant to feel about them is downright confusing. Truth be told: the movie wasn't THAT bad.
It was Fine.
This movie follows a character by the name of Utah, an ex- famous athlete who is now making his way into a career with the FBI. Utah gets a big chance to work on a big case; Following a group of seemingly professional athlete criminals. Utah soon falls undercover so he can gain the trust of this group of people, find out the information he needs and take them down. The thing is, it's not really done right
Alright, well I'll start off with the positive; To put it simply, they do some cool stuff. This movie basically felt like a YouTube video that RedBull or some other extreme sports channel would have to offer. The film is an extreme sports advertisement, and hey, some of it looks really cool. The action was shot exceedingly well.
From the opening scene with some sweet dirt bike action to the unique and odd looking act of Wingsuit Flying and the intimidatingly dangerous view of gigantic waves pursuing to crash over you while surfing. The movie did make me want to go out and try some of this stuff and was successful in making extreme sports look both dangerous and fun. Making these scenes even better is the fact that most of this stunt work was shot practically. Which seems to be a thing falling into fashion nowadays since films like Mad Max: Fury Road. Crammed between the action scenes however are our obligatory pieces of exposition. And this is where the film really begins to fail. The problem is that you just don't care. You don't care why the characters are doing what they're doing and you don't really care if they even make it out of these situations that they're trying to explain to begin with.
Really the main problem with this film was its characters. I have seen the movie and I still don't understand who these people are or why they are doing the things that they do. Our protagonist is a boring cardboard cut-out – Doing what he needs to and nothing more, and the antagonist is just as charmless, just as dull and lacking in any sort of personality. As well as a few side characters put in there for no real purpose, such as "The girl." Who is there solely to be "The Girl" of the movie.
The most offensive part of this film is that this is supposed to be a character piece. This is supposed to portray a compelling relationship. It is supposed to divide the Utah's Morals, but instead he stays completely good, we have no doubt in our minds that he is on the right side of the law for any moment. He is not seduced to a life of crime at any point.
Our antagonist Bodhi is just as nonsensical. The film attempts to make this character appear as some sort of deeply spiritual man, with a heart of gold who just happens to do bad things. He believes in this borderline religious belief about committing impossible acts as a way to gain the ultimate experiences And then he must also commit more impossible acts but commit crimes these times to give back to the world because the first ones he did were gifts? Look, the point is it's pretty ridiculous. The film should have had this character either just be a criminal because it's fun and for financial gain or they could have messed around with this idea without trying to make the character seem real cool and edgy. He didn't have to be so "Zen" is all I'm saying. He comes off as too preachy and too perfect. It's like the film wants you to root for this philosophically illogical guy.
Visually, this film is rather pretty. The cool colors of the environments surrounding our characters throughout the film drown the screen in profound blues and green. Scenes involving large oceanic waves, deep green forests and unfathomably tall mountainsides covered in pure white snow and jagged rocks are simply beautiful to look at. This is where the cinematography and framing really excels in the film. The film's camera work and editing is passable. It feels both professional and modern, it doesn't bring much that's new to the table however to be fair not many movies do or even can and the work put into the film visually should still be appreciated.
The acting is OK. There is nothing to stand out but it, but it the actors get the job done. The writing is FINE, but ultimately uninspired and comes off as a failed attempt of being overly spiritual and profound. (This is most apparent during Bodhi's dialogue especially.) Ultimately, the whole movie is nothing more or less than average. I'm not angry at the movie, I wasn't TOO bored, but I didn't love it and I wasn't not bored either. All in all, Point break is acceptable and nothing more or less.
Point break is the definition of 'Style over Substance.' With an uninteresting 'Romance,' some cliché 'cop moments' and a laughable redo of a classic scene from the original - Point Break mostly fails. But it's still far from the worst thing I've ever seen.
It's entertaining enough if you have nothing to do and it's got some great action. This is the kind of movie to pop on, half-watch and enjoy some thoughtless action, and to be fair there is nothing wrong with doing that every once in a while. If you can let the 'Remake Bias' go, and keep your expectations low, this movie's fine. 5/10