Footloose

Movie: Footloose

Genre: drama

Synopsis: This is a remake of the 1984 Kevin Bacon classic of the same name.  Ren (Kenny Wormald) was recently orphaned when his mother died of leukemia.  He moves from Boston to the small southern town of Bomont to live with his aunt and uncle.  He finds that in the aftermath of a tragic car accident three years earlier, a series of rather draconian laws were passed to “protect” the students, including a law that bans dancing in public.  Ren embarks on a campaign to revoke the law and to allow dancing back in the town.

My two cents: I really loved the original.  His version was pretty darn good – but not quite up to the 1984 original.  Character by character: Ren goes to Kevin Bacon in 1984, Reverend Moore goes John Lithgow in 1984, Mrs. Moore goes to Diane Wiest in 1984, Williard – I give this a tie between Miles Teller (2011) and Chris Penn (1984), Ariel Moore goes to Julianne Hough in 2011.  I also liked the aunt and uncle in 2011 better.  The 1984 versions were red-neck bible-thumpers whereas the 2011 were pretty decent people and very supportive of Ren.  The real stand-out I thought was Julianne Hough.  She is not only drop-dead beautiful, but is in a class of her own when it comes to dancing.  My only real disappointment was that they did not give Kevin Bacon some kind of cameo.

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