Footloose delivers as thoughtful remake of original.

Footloose, the Kevin Bacon original, was probably the first movie that spoke to me.   I saw it with Robert Bender, his mom and some friends on a Friday afternoon in February of 1984 at Chicago Ridge Mall.   More pointedly, the music of Footloose and rebelliousness of the characters appealed to the thirteen year old boy in me.  I went back and saw the film three or four more times.  Wore out at least two cassette copies of the soundtrack.  Plus, I rented the video numerous times.  In all honesty it was the music that kept me coming back to the film.  The music video quality of the film is what stood out.  The narrative most decidedly did not.  The narrative pretty much served the basic purpose of driving the film from music sequence to music sequence. Yet, there were some charming and funny exchanges between the characters.  The love scene.  The fight scenes.  The teen angst scenes.  Those things made the film memorable for kids of the 80′s generation.  Not so much a classic like a John Hughes film, or Dirty Dancing, but definitely more memorable and everlasting than Breakin’ or a lot of other flicks geared toward teens that included dancing and pumped up soundtracks.

In 1995 I took a class on film musicals and chose to write about Footloose.  It was when I started reading about and looking at the film with a critical eye that I really noticed the flaws of the film.   Stuff  beyond the sound stage that is clearly seen moving below Chris Penn in one of the dance sequences and the fact that Ariel’s prom dress changes between scenes.  I noticed how the narrative really wasn’t strong.  I noticed the mountains that didn’t fit a small town in the Midwest.  I noticed how Ren’s taste in music didn’t seem to match up with what they showed on the screen.  It was neat to pick the film apart, but none of that mattered to my twelve year old self who was obsessed with the movie.   What was more important was that  the music was cool.  The characters shared my taste in music and the film had an impact in my love of music.

So in 2007 and 2008 when I started hearing rumors of a remake I wasn’t really thrilled that they had decided to remake it.   The more I heard about it  the more it turned me off.  Kenny Ortega, the guy behind High School Musical was going to direct.  Zac Effron was going to play Ren.  Rumors were floating around they were going to re tell the story to appeal to the kids who grew up on the squeaky clean Disney or Nickelodeon tween shows.

Footloose wasn’t really that “naughty” a film but there was a little smoking, drinking and a drug reference or two.  I believed any remake for today’s tweens done in the mindset of Disney or Nickelodeon shows would sanitize that and who knows what else.  Not everybody’s high school experience included keg parties or getting stoned in the park, but most of us knew a stoner, heard about a wild party, tried a cigarette or two,  or participated in some small act of rebellion–so I didn’t want to see acknowledgement of that go away in the Footloose world, even if it isn’t PC in the 21st Century.

Then I heard that Craig Brewer, who directed Black Snake Moan and Hustle and Flow, was directing.  I heard  MTV films was one of the companies behind it.  I thought, alright, the remake still might be a dog, but between MTV and this director it probably wouldn’t be a sugary sweet remake.  Over time I watched trailers, clips, and heard the music. I was hooked.  I still didn’t know how good it would be, but they’d get my money to see it.  What I got for my $5.50 was a very thoughtful remake of the film.  It’s the first thing MTV has put it’s logo on in 15 years that may appeal to it’s original audience.

The 2011 version of Footloose is as much about the narrative as it is the music, rebellion and the dancing.   The narrative in the first version is very vague leaving the viewer to connect the dots.  The adults were all one dimensional and they really made the Rev. Shaw Moore somewhat of a caricature of a very conservative christian preacher.  A guy whose brand of Christianity banned dancing, popular secular music and all the “evils” that go along with it.    They did the very minimum in the narrative to explain why he felt that way and how his son’s death reinforced or caused those feelings.   In the original they also made Ariel out to be the preacher’s rebellious daughter, and it’s never really explored if she’s rebellious because of her brother’s death or is just a hell raiser.

In the 2011 version they explore these themes more satisfactorily.  In this Footloose most of the adults are caring, concerned parents who express themselves and think for themselves .   Andie MacDowell playing Vi Moore seems to connect with the kids in a way Dianne Wiest’s portrayal tries but falls short.  Ren’s aunt and uncle act as supportive family members, which isn’t the case in the original.  Even at the end of the film while setting up for the dance, the adults are included and shown as being involved in their teens lives.

Christianity as the driving force behind the ban on dancing and music is also downplayed.  Yes, that’s part of it, but mainly because the reverend has lost his son.  His real motivation is that he’s a father who lost his son and he doesn’t want anyone else in town to experience that.  He just happens to be a preacher with influence.  This version of the film is very much about a tragedy.  How people  overreact to that tragedy in an effort to protect their children, and how an outsider gets them to re-examine what they’re doing in the name of “safety”.  That’s really what both versions of the film are about, but the original’s lack of narrative doesn’t let the viewer go there easily.  It easily leads the viewer down the path of Christian adults vs. rebellious teens fighting for their rights.  Oh sure, if you work at it you can connect the dots, but does anyone really want to work that hard while watching the movie?

In choosing to focus on the narrative, the film losses a little bit of it’s musical cred and at times moves at a much slower pace.  The soundtrack is impressive with a great line up of established and future stars who have the chops.  Yet in the context of the film it doesn’t always work.  In the original, the montages ran most of the song length and the original music written for the film had a consistency that ran throughout the film augmented by popular artists of the time (Sammy Hagar, Quiet Riot, John Mellencamp.)     In this version the music is all over the place including Country, Hip Hop, Dance, Southern Rock and the originals from the 1984 film.  Because of time devoted to the narrative, dance sequences are shorter and the music is less front and center.

There are times when the music works.  For example:  The opening sequence uses Kenny Loggin’s version of “Footloose” in a very different way which really set’s the narrative.  The use of Denise William’s version of “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” is very cute.  “Fake ID” by Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson is the music for this version’s signature dance scene and is perfect.  At other times, to me, the music doesn’t match the visuals–although that could be my bias from the original.     At other times, like when they play Blake Shelton’s version of “Footloose” or Victoria Justice and Hunter Hays version of “Almost Paradise”  it just doesn’t have the same impact to me as those songs did in the original.

If you haven’t seen Footloose yet, and don’t want to know plot points, or want to experience the specific differences between the films, stop reading here until you watch them, this is your SPOILER ALERT!

In this version of Footloose the characters of Chuck Cranston and Ariel Moore are slightly different than the original.  Chuck came across as older in this version vs. how he was portrayed in the original.   In the original he was maybe 18 or 19, a year out of high school, or perhaps even in high school with the rest of them.  He was clearly a contemporary of Ariel, Willard and Ren.  In this version he comes across as a three or four years older, and not really a contemporary of the group.  I think the character works better as a contemporary of the group.    In addition, instead of him and Ren going head to head in a chicken race on tractors, they’ve changed it to a chicken race in buses 3 vs. 1.   This doesn’t work for me.   Because while the  original had a weak narrative the chicken race scene/montage and when Ren dances out his angst do advance the story, and the bus chicken race really falls short of that.

Ariel is a slightly different as well.  While watching the beginning film I thought Julianne Hough turned in a weak, tentative performance.  That was mainly because Lori Singer’s portrayal of Ariel in the original was as a confident, sexy, hell raiser who enjoyed poking at her father through her clothes, boyfriend and promiscuity.   In her most memorable scenes in the film, Singer portrayed Ariel with a cockiness and coolness towards Ren.  Hough plays Ariel in those memorable scenes in almost the exact opposite way.  Her Ariel isn’t cocky and almost seems a little uncomfortable in the role of confident hell raiser.   As the narrative unfolds, we learn her rebelliousness is as a product of her brother’s death and her father’s reaction to it.  It makes sense then how she acts towards Ren early in the film, her cockiness is an act she’s not entirely comfortable with.

Andie MacDowell and Dennis Quaid do a wonderful job portraying the Rev. Shaw and Vi Moore.  Quaid (and the writing) does a good job at letting us into understand why The Rev. Moore feels the way he does.  In the original they tried to show us a very flawed and hurt man trying to lead his flock, understand his daughter and make sense of it all while keeping the town safe.  It doesn’t work.  There’s no side plot about books burning or anything in this version,  there’s less preaching, and the conversation Ren and the Rev. Moore have about his son is ten times better than in the original.

In this version, besides redefining the characters, they’ve changed up the story a little.  Ren ends up with his Uncle Wes and Aunt Lulu because his mom passed away from cancer.  It’s a small plot point, but it changes the story and makes it better.  First, it allows Uncle Wes and Aunt Lulu to be real characters as opposed to their one dimensional portrayal as an authority figure and busy body in the original.  I like that they care for Ren, and Uncle Wes especially understands Ren and sticks up for him.  Second, it gives context to why Ren wants to change the law on dancing in the town.  Third, it let’s the Rev. Moore see Ren in a different light and with respect.

A lot o the film is lifted word for word and scene for scene from the original.  If you liked the original it’s a very comfortable film to watch.  Some scenes pop up in different places, some scenes are bigger, others are smaller, a few of the scenes are deleted and a couple are different but very reminiscent of the original.  In addition they did a nice job of keeping the charming and funny exchanges between the characters that was one of the original narrative’s high points.  In fact, they even throw some new ones in that got lots of laughs.  

Footloose 2011 is a fun movie.  It does justice to the original.  If you’re familiar with the original it’s a new thoughtful, more mature take on the original.  It will play on your heart strings and be an interesting film to watch to compare and contrast with the original.  If you’re not familiar with the original, it’s an enjoyable movie that will entertain you.  Does it have the teen and tween appeal of the original?   I don’t know.  This movie looks and feels a lot like the MTV produced movies of ten or eleven years ago and I don’t think it’s got the soundtrack or the slickness to have the impact the original did in 1984.  Whether the filmmakers consciously targeted the original fans of the film I don’t know,  yet that’s who was in the theater and that seems to be the age group that this thoughtful remake is speaking to.

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