FOOTLOOSE (Craig Brewer). 113 minutes. Opens Friday (October 14). See listing. Rating: N
Footloose is a slavish remake of a movie that wasn’t all that good to begin with.
Kenny Wormald steps into Kevin Bacon’s dancing shoes as Ren, a twinkle-toed teen from Boston who moves to a Southern city where partying has been outlawed. As in the original, Ren gets on the wrong side of the preacher who helped impose these laws (Dennis Quaid) while falling for his wild daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough, a comely mix of bootylicious and small-town sweetie). Oh, Ren also has a local police officer on his case (for playing loud music), as well as Ariel’s ex, a redneck looking to scrap.
All these characters were already clichés back in the 80s, which makes you wonder why director Craig Brewer and his team hew so close to the original in this lead-footed and anachronistic remake.
The body-rocking black people in the background and the Whiz Khalifa track on Ren’s iPod are among the few attempts to make this Footloose contemporary.
However, Wormald (a charmless actor but a very capable dancer) sticks to Bacon’s old moves, which aren’t exactly a thrill in the age of Step Up and How She Move.
Some might call it an homage. I call it lazy.
