Footloose

It does not make me want to kick off my Sunday shoes. Oowhee Marie. It's time to cut Footloose from your list of movies to see this weekend (get used to the Footloose lyrics, I am going to do this all the way throughout the review until Kenny Loggins sues me for copyright infringement.)

In case you didn't see the original (and, believe me, all of the same scenes are here if you didn't), Kenny Wormald stars as Ren McCormack - a troubled teen from Boston who moves in with his Uncle Wes (Ray McKinnon) because the kid's mother has passed away. Ren finds himself a long way from chowder land as he tries to settle into this small town of Bomont (Georgia?), and, when he's not working so hard and punching his card, the kid wants to dance! However, Bomont banned dancing a few years ago after some kids got killed in a horrible car accident coming home from a dance party (if you are looking for logic, you are in the wrong theater).

Sure, Ren wants to play it cool and obey every rule, but he has got to cut footloose! Between trying to convince the town's preacher, Rev. Moore (Dennis Quaid), dancing is OK and trying to win the heart of the Reverend's wild child daughter, Ariel (Julianne Hough), he's going to hit the ceiling or else he will tear up this town!

Will Ren and the kids at school be able to have a dance without getting into trouble?

Can Ren convince everybody you can fly if you'd only cut loose? Footloose?

Footloose stinks. Mostly, you can chalk that up to taking scenes, ideas and themes from an almost 30-year old movie (yep, I was shocked when I did the math, too) and trying to make them relevant today.

Writer/director Craig Brewer, an avowed fanatic of the original Footloose, tries too hard to stay faithful to the original, but the movie's ultimate downfall is the story itself.

Back in 1984, the world was such a bigger place that a kid like me honestly believed it was possible some tiny, crazy town out in the middle of nowhere might actually ban dancing. In 2011, you can't hide from pop culture, the internet, TV and modern society even if you set up camp in the middle of Amish Country, and attempts to impose any kind of religiously or morally based action and behavior on teens is a lost cause. Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian are more powerful than the town preacher. These facts make Footloose all the more implausible.

Plus, the original Footloose was one of the first movies to merge music, MTV and a movie to such perfection. It was so culturally significant, you couldn't get away from it, and it felt more special than any movie released today, which are gone and forgotten after opening weekend.

As far as the rest of it, Wormald might be best known for playing Dancer in Clerks II and Dancer in You Got Served and Dancer #10 on The Drew Carey Show, but you can't blame him for Footloose. He's serviceable, obviously trying very hard, and, with a better movie, I could see him doing well. Sure, people laughed at his big dramatic solo dance at the abandoned factory (the classic angry dance that made Bacon a star), but that just goes to show you how times and tastes have changed.

McKinnon might as well be billed as The Woefully Underused Ray McKinnon. He's fun and creates a character full of common sense who perfectly delivers his lines with a mix of sarcasm with truth, while Miles Teller steals the show as Willard - the football player who wants to learn how to dance and becomes Ren's best buddy.

As far as Hough, well, umm, she's very pretty. Sure, I'd like her to shake it, shake it for me (that's a line from the Footloose song, which doesn't make it less creepy and pathetic, but I need to make some excuse for writing that). However, Hough seems to have one style of acting. Flat.

Next time I try to walk into a theater showing this Footloose, you got to turn me around and put my feet on the ground, so I can walk out as quickly as possible.

Footloose is rated PG- 13 for some teen drug and alcohol use, sexual content, violence and language.