Footloose Review

I just saw the new Footloose on October 19, 2011. I was actually really impressed with it. It basically follows the same formula as the first movie with Kevin Bacon (who is busy playing villains and doing a great job at it recently in Super with Ellen Page and Rainn Wilson and in X-Men First Class. I remember how fun he was in Wild Things as well). The city boy from Boston, Massachusetts Ren MacCormack comes to Bomont and shakes things up. There was an accident that claimed the lives of four teenagers including the reverend's son. Due to the dancing and partying that led to the accident, there is a ban on public dancing and anything not deemed moralistic such as drinking alcohol. Kenny Wormald actually did a good job in the role and had great chemistry with Ariel Moore, the preacher's daughter played by Julianne Hough. I am not a fan of Julianne Hough, but I have to say I was impressed overall with her performance. My favorite character was Willard played by Miles Teller. He did a great job being Ren's friend and showing him the ropes of the South, while Ren helps him learn how to dance. There was alot of good music in this movie particularly by Quiet Riot which can also be heard in The Wrestler and some decent country music. I loved the scene where they go to the country line dancing bar. They were having fun on the dance floor and I almost thought they should have had 5,6,7,8 by Steps playing or Cotton Eyed Joe. They both would have worked. The race with the buses was pretty cool and that guy Chuck just deserved to get his butt whooped. Willard dancing along with the Barbie sing-along that Ren's cousins are dancing to is priceless. He does this in order to learn the dance steps that Ren knows. The kids get a petition together to ban the ban on no public dancing, which is successful after Reverend Shaw witnesses that Ren is a class act. I felt for Ren in a way as he talks about his mother who died of leukemia and how he never got to properly say goodbye to her. It was pretty emotional as I technically never really got to properly say goodbye to mine the right way either. He is a likeable character and his buddy Willard just reminds me of how me and my buddies from Elmira just hung out talking about the little things in life that we like. Ren actually had a similar suit to the one Kevin Bacon wears in the original for the prom scene at the end. I am not a fan of Blake Shelton, but he actually did a great job of recording the Footloose theme making it sound pretty close to the original one. I'll give the movie a 4/5 as the performances were pretty good, the dancing was fun, the music was loud and good and you could feel the energy coming off the screen.