Movie buffs freaked when word leaked that Paramount Pictures was remaking its 1984 youth classic ‘Footloose,’ as if the studio was tampering with a sacred text. Or remaking ‘The Ten Commandments,’ God forbid. (Oh, wait. ‘The Ten Commandments’ with Charlton Heston was itself a remake – done over by the same director, Cecil B. DeMille).

Sure, the first ‘Footloose’ was fun, but it really was magic for two reasons: a terrific soundtrack built around Kenny Loggins’ title song that sounds every bit as slamming today as it did 27 years ago, and the star-making turn by Kevin Bacon, one of the most enduring actors of the modern era. But aside from that (and OK, Chris Penn’s performance – particularly while learning how to dance – was endearing as well), the movie was MTV-style cheese.

So why make a new one? Frankly, why not? With its tale of a teenage outsider rallying his peers to stand up for their fundamental right to the joyous free expression of dance, the core story has an undeniable appeal that should hold up for generations. Unfortunately, the young audiences that should still embrace the original don’t seem to keep anything from the ‘80s alive outside of John Hughes’ movies.

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The 1984 ‘Footloose’ told a fun, jaunty story about a teen named Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon) who moves into a Christian community and rebels against a local law prohibiting “public dancing.” It wasn’t a great movie, but it’s an enjoyable one with a few strong dance sequences. Despite the fact that the 2011 remake follows the same formula and story, it fails to capture the lightness or the charm of the original.

Like in the original, Ren (Kenny Wormald) is a stranger in a small town and doesn’t fit in. In the remake, he’s a wise-cracking rebel from Boston who acts and talks differently than his classmates. When he learns that the town minister (Dennis Quaid) helped pass a law against public dancing, Ren starts to understand that’s he’s not in Bean Town anymore. “Dancing can be destructive,” the minister argues, to Ren’s dismay. In the meantime, the minister’s daughter (‘Dancing with the Stars” Julianne Hough), who Ren develops feelings for, spends her days running wild and ignoring her father’s pious advice.

The remake was written by Dean Pitchford, the screenwriter of the original ‘Footloose,’ and director Craig Brewer. One of the problems they seemingly encountered was making this remake more contemporary without losing the original’s laid-back charm. While the original found Ren playing a game of chicken on a tractor with the town’s bad boy, this remake shows Ren in a race with a group of trouble-makers. Each of them drives an old school bus and races around an empty lot, trying not to crash. The original scene, while unremarkable, was charming in its simplicity. No one’s life was in danger. The remake, though, had to rev things up with this big bus-racing sequence. In replacing simplicity with adrenaline, the remake loses some of the original’s innocence. (more…)

According to the new film “Soul Surfer,” Bethany Hamilton was a born surfer. Her parents were both diehard surfers so it seemed natural when she started surfing herself. As a teenager, her potential seemed limitless until a shark attack cost her an arm and put her dreams in jeopardy. ”Soul Surfer” tells the true story of how Bethany overcame that attack with the help of her family, her optimism and an unwavering faith in God.

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Bethany (Anna Sophia Robb) begins the story as a young surfer aiming to win local competitions against her rival, Malina Birch (Sonya Balmores). The plot starts out slow as it introduces Bethany’s family, who regularly attend Church together and who love to spend time riding the waves. Along with her two brothers, the family includes Bethany’s mother Cheri (Helen Hunt) and her father Tom (Dennis Quaid). After a few surfing scenes that feel like false alarms for what’s to come, Bethany is attacked by a shark while out surfing with her friends. The shark bites off one of her arms and leaves her questioning her surfing career.

The scenes surrounding the shark attack are some of the weakest scenes in the story. Before the attack, the surfing scenes are directed in anticipation of the big attack. Like in “Jaws,”  there are several shots of Bethany surfing while something seemingly lurks underneath the water. These seem out of place in a story that should be more focused on Bethany’s recovery, not on the attack itself. When the shark finally attacks, it’s anti-climactic. The story continues to stumble right after the attack. The director doesn’t seem to know where the camera should be and has it bouncing around and then cutting to close-ups of the actors as they bring Bethany to safety. After that, the camera thankfully slows down and lets the story unfold. 

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There’s nothing at all in the trailer to indicate the faith elements that are obviously a very big part of the true story of Bethany Hamilton — a young surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack and through the love of her parents, her Christian faith, and an incredible amount of determination, miraculously returned to tournament surfing. Instead, the marketing’s aimed directly at teens and positioned as a coming of age/overcoming obstacles/feel good film. Nothing wrong with that. As long as the film itself is true to the faith elements (from what I’ve read, it is), this is probably a wise move. People already aware of the story will show up, so why categorize your product as a “Christian film” if it’s so much more?

This is how it used to be, anyway, before Hollywood grew so openly hostile to Christianity. Hollywood always uses “reflecting reality” as an excuse for its coarseness, but won’t do so to reflect the reality of how the Christian faith is a central component in the lives of most Americans. Our faith is as natural a part of who we are as our work and family and secular lives, so there’s no reason to, for lack of a better term, “ghetto-ize” this kind of story as Christian.

In the real world, this is a universal story, no?

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“Mankind survived the last ice age. We’re certainly capable of surviving this one. All depends on whether or not we’re able to learn from our mistakes.”

Why it’s a left-wing film: Not long after the 1996 release of his mega-blockbuster “Independence Day,” you could hear director Roland Emmerich gulp. Whatever his intentions, he had made one the most patriotic tent-pole films of the ’90s and the liberal entertainment media was letting him have it with the usual comments about jingoism and just how “dumb” it all was. Soon after came the widely and somewhat unfairly lambasted “Godzilla,” followed by another patriotic actioner, Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot.”

Then something happened, probably George W. Bush becoming president, because in 2004 Emmerich let loose with “The Day After Tomorrow,” a Leftist snuff fantasy and environmental wet dream where all of Western Civilization, most especially the United States, reaps what they’ve sewn when Mother Nature strikes back for our polluting ways with a can of CGI Whup-Ass that contains super-tornadoes, tidal waves, and insta-freeze hurricanes that all lead up to another Ice Age.

The film’s Vice President of the United States intentionally looks like then-Vice President Cheney, the unsure President who helplessly asks his VP ‘What do we do?”, intentionally looks like Bush, and both are eventually taught a Hollywood-fantasy-lesson about getting  what you deserve when you don’t listen to the modern-day environmental movement. To wit, Bush’s counterpart is killed in the whirlwind he enabled and Cheney’s is humbled after everyone above the Mason-Dixon line is wiped out and everyone below gets a taste of poetic justice when they’re forced to illegally cross into Mexico and ask for sanctuary.

“I was wrong,” Mr. Movie-Cheney says of fossil fuels. (more…)

As if the makers of “G.I. Joe” hadn’t mucked up their own publicity enough by immediately politicizing the film with an announcement that all the crass Americanism would be stripped from our favorite action heroes in favor of a more global approach, on Monday director Stephen Sommers decided to polarize audiences even more hectoring we RedStaters not to misinterpret the deep well of subtext put into his creation: ”[T]his is not a George Bush movie – it’s an Obama world[.]”

And indeed “G.I. Joe” does remind of an Obama world: It cost too much, doesn’t deliver and we should all get back our cash for this clunker.

While nowhere near as soul-deadening as “Transformers 2” or the latest “Harry Potter,” you still feel like you’re watching someone else play a video game for two hours. The creative imagination spent to produce all-kinds of cool gadgets and weaponry obviously left nothing for plot, character or even a hint of logic. One of the bigger action scenes is a chase through the streets of Paris involving the combined force of a dozen “Joes,” deadly missiles and million-dollar accelerator suits all in pursuit of a Hummer filled with bad guys. Oh sure, there’s sound, fury, car crashes, and explosions galore, but never an explanation for why no one shoots out the Hummer’s tires. (more…)