A remake of the original from 1984, "Footloose" pits old farts who hate rock and roll against wild, young, dancing teens who want to shake their groove thing all night long.
The story remains basically the same. Some teens, including the son of a local reverend, are killed in a car accident after a night of dancing and partying. The reverend (Dennis Quaid) then leads the drive to pass an ordinance forbidding public dancing. Fast forward a few years. Now the reverend's daughter Ariel, played by Julianne Hough, starts to stir up controversy by participating in some forbidden, underground dancing. Plus the new kid in town, Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald) stirs up even more controversy in the role originally played by Kevin Bacon.
McCormack, along with the town's teens, petition the city to allow dancing. This just spells trouble. For a town that hasn't had any public dancing in a while, those kids seem suspiciously well choreographed. Look, when you do a remake of a movie that's not great to begin with, you are going to get, well, another not so great movie.
The tunes were catchy and perhaps the best thing about the film. Some songs were remakes of the originals, some others are new. "Footloose" is good clean fun, ridiculously far-fetched and, for the most part, too cute and loaded with gobs of sap.
The flick-o-meter gives "Footloose" barely a three out of five. Fans of the original may like it and teens will should have a decent experience as well. It just doesn't have that dancing edge the original had – sorry.
Footloose opens today, Oct. 14, at in Alpharetta, with the first showing at 1:15 p.m.
