Wow I am a huge fan of the original Footloose, I always thought it was a great movie. Until today, when I saw the remake.The first 10 minutes into the new remake I realized, boy the original Footloose was missing 3 things. Let me break this down for you in greater detail. Let’s start with the number one thing the original Footloose was missing
The first thing its missing is black people, how dare mid 1980s Hollywood be so racist to imply black people don’t love living in red neck run small towns. How dare they. Everyone knows small towns with mostly bigoted red necks is a huge draw for the black community. The original was also missing a wise kind black man but this update fixed that, YES take that racist 1980s Hollywood.
The second thing missing was a bus race I remember watching the original about a week ago, thinking damn I wish Ren and Chuck were racing buses instead of playing chicken with tractors. I mean tractor chicken is stupid even for those lame ass teens back in 1984, but buses racing OH YEAH SON SNAP.
Now if those two were not enough to make you run out and wait for Friday, wait till you hear number three. Bad acting. Yes that’s right, bad acting. See the first Footloose stared Kevin Bacon playing Ren McCormack. A teen uprooted from the home he knows and loves, and forced to live in Bomont because it’s the only place Ren’s mom could get a job. So Ren never really needed to deliver any heavy dialog till it came to give his big speech, in this version Ren’s mother died. He was all alone taking care of her till the end, it was a horrible tough experience for Ren. Needless to say this change makes the character of Ren much heavier, not a bad change necessarily but you need the right actor the pull off the heft. Well MTV did not go after that actor they went with Kenny Wormald a dancer from Boston, you know I don’t think Kevin Bacon was a trained dancer. So why was a trained dancer so important for the new Footloose, it wasn’t everyone else turned the role down. New Ren does not do a single thing in this movie old Ren didn’t do in the original in fact old Ren done a lot of it better.
You know it sounds like the movie is bad, it’s not it’s just pointless, it does not hurt or take away anything from the original. It just serves no purpose the dancing is the same in both films, the dressing is the same in both films. Hell if it was not for the fact they mention cell phones and show a iPod this movie could have been set in the 80s. For the first 10 minutes I thought it was, the movie begins with a close up of feet dancing much like the original. Footloose the song by Kenny Loggins is playing people dancing, 5 drunk teens get in a car, at this point I was thinking wow what a great way to begin. I was expecting the kids to die and see 15 years later card but no we got a 3 years later card. WHAT? No really, WHAT teens were getting drunk and having sex in 2008 listening to Kenny Loggins, find me those teens they need help. 10 years ago when I was a teen Kenny Loggins was uncool at a party, now me alone driving whole other story. But make no mistake their jamming to Kenny they’re singing the damn song, it just does not make sense. I mean you spent the money, you casted the cast the best you could do to update the movie is add a minor black character and change the chicken race? And why just black how about a Asian guy or Indian, I guess we need to wait for the next remake.
