Footloose (1984) Vs Footloose (2011)

Loose, footloose kick off your Sunday shoes, Please, Louise pull me off a my knees,Jack, get back c'mon before we crack, Lose your blues now everybody cut footloose. There's no fucking doubt that Kenny Loggins was the king of the 80's soundtrack but reading these back they were pretty fucking shit. Thing is aside from the title track what do these two films have in common? So here it is my first Versus as I set out on a one man quest to discover whether remakes, reimaginings or whatever the fuck you want to call them are as good as the originals. With Footloose it seems there's more than a little that is similar about the remake.

Cast

Going to kick off with a little cast comparison. The great thing about the 80's was the influx of young talent even in films like Footloose so we had Ren played by Kevin Bacon and Ariel by Fame regular Lori Singer. Throw in Chris Penn and old big nose Sarah Jessica Parker and to be fair for a not great film you had a pretty good cast. Footloose 2011 has Kenny Wormaid, Julianne Hough, Miles Teller and Ziah Colon. Now they could all be stars of the future but I'd say at least 3 out of the 4 will be appearing as murder victims in CSI before too long. Although unfair to judge the new cast I can't help but think that the stars of the original will be still acting way past the careers of the current ones. So on to the old guys. Well we have John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest in 1984 and Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell. I'd call that a draw.

Director

Herbert Ross directed the likes of Play It Again Sam (1972), The Goodbye Girl (1977) and Steel Magnolias (1989). He worked with the likes of Dreyfuss, Woody Allen, Julia Roberts and so many more. Sadly he passed on in 2001. Craig Brewer gave us Hustle And Flow and Black Snake Moan. He's worked with Samuel L Jackson, Terrence Howard and Justin Timberlake. To be completely fair Brewer should never have taken the Footloose gig but I think he couldn't get any fucking work.

The Actual Film

Now I fucking hate remakes. I don't mind if it's done well and with a bit of fucking passion. Footloose is a fucking travesty though. Don't get me wrong the original is no fucking classic but like alot of things in the 80's it fucking matters to me purely on a memory basis of a time when I didn't need to get absolutely fucking shitfaced to dance. The problem is the remake is utterly fucking pointless. I've seen alot of remakes etc in recent years and most have disappointed more than discovering the woman you've been married to for 30 years is in fact a man. However not that many have just taken the whole thing and set it in the now. There is so much about the remake that is just fucking illogical. Why the fuck take the music and just remix it? The iconic songs of course but there's even a slow down version of Bonnie Tyler on it. Incidentally that's another fucking modern plague. Fucking slow down versions of classic songs. Write your own shit fuckers. Anyway back to whats what. The script is almost the same and the scennes almost replicas. This really is remake by numbers and it fucking stinks of dead things rotting slowly. Of course the only notable differences are the tractor race replaced by a bus race and suddenly our main characters have black friends. Now I'm not saying that's wrong but putting anything in a film to appease is pointless. Fuck me the film is set in a small hick town. Black friends? Really? Their fucking dads probably wear hoods.

Well?

That's it really. The 2011 version is just not worth fucking watching and is the film equivalent of farting in a lift. Might seem funny at the time but upon reflection in very bad taste. Kids of a certain age will love the new one but then kids of a certain age think Transformers 3 is good so what the fuck would they know about anything. Like many before it and I'm sure it won't be the last this really is a fucking pointless remake. Give me the original anytime. Footloose, cut loose!

Comments

[may the force be with you]

At least the soundtrack was amazing...

[drunkenmaster]

It was indeed. Kenny Loggins had the midas touch in the 80's for film music.