Not bad for a remake

Rating: 7/10 (31 March 2016)

Luke Bracey plays the rookie cop Johnnie Utah a former adrenaline junkie kid turned FBI agent. Who is sent undercover to infiltrate a band of thieves that seem to be themselves a group of thrill-seeking daredevils. It is quickly (a little too quickly possibly) established that the suspects are following a series cultish, zen like trials known as The Okuza Eight. A series of dangerous missions around the world that test even the greatest athletes. The premise is well updated from the original Reeves/Swayze film of the early 90's with more to do with saving the planet and paying back what they take. But they just happen to have all these amazing natural phenomena happen one after the other in perfect synchronicity allowing the group of renegades to chase the thrill around the world. The film used the obligatory CGI whenever and where ever possible when it wasn't even needed, quite often it would have been cheaper and quicker to just film the actors on the water rather than green screen it, where as the snow scenes seemed to be real. As for the casting it seemed like everyone was a replacement, we spent the entire film calling out who was meant to play the role, i.e Utah should have been Chris Hemsworth, Samsara should have been Kristen Stewart and Jonathon Tucker (Jay Kulina in Kingdom) should have played Roach, etc. Sure there were enough holes to fill a golf course but it still did 'alright' for a remake. But why remake it in the first place? It's not like the 1990's is so long ago that time has forgotten it, or that surfing has change that much in 20 years that it needed a remake (like Footloose made no sense with cassette tapes and ghetto blasters, it needed to be remade). Still its worth a watch and recommended :)