Here’s What The Critics Are Saying …
… about the inexplicably enduring 80s musical about a young man who teaches the squares to love rock-and-roll. I blame “Footloose” for many things. But I do not blame it for giving Kenny Loggins continued means to make a living.

Entertainment Weekly: Gives the movie an A-minus. Here’s what their critic had to say:

“Guardians of the ’80s flame will approve of the production’s sincere respect for the original; church still matters, and so do Ariel’s red cowboy boots. But Brewer, who previously put his high-intensity spin on Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan, displays his coolest moves in the way he smartly unties this Footloose from its 1980s moorings. He matter-of-factly integrates the townsfolk. And he establishes a timeless zone in which children of all colors always yearn for freedom, and wise parents learn how to hand over the dance floor to the next generation.”

The Observer (London): Critic Phillip French doesn’t hold back:

“This is an unimaginative, near-carbon copy of what everyone recognised in 1984 as a cross between Flashdance and Rebel Without a Cause. Dennis Quaid now plays the decent but dogmatic Presbyterian minister who persuades a small town in the Deep South to ban dancing and other social activities involving teenagers after five kids are killed driving home one Saturday night. The new boy in town who challenges these prohibitions (quoting texts from Psalms, Samuel and Ecclesiastes on dancing) is here played by Kenny Wormald, a less arrogant, but less impressive figure than Kevin Bacon was in 1984.”

The Los Angeles Times: Kenneth Turan is similarly unimpressed:

“The new version of the 1984 favorite that costarred Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer as the fastest feet in a town that bans youthful dancing is not so much a remake as a renovation. In the great tradition of Los Angeles real estate, a venerable property has been modernized, refurbished and tweaked when necessary to bring it in line with the demands of today’s market.

That means that the clothes are tighter, the bodies more toned, the dancing hotter, the characters more racially diverse, the sexual context more obvious. But underneath it all still beats the shameless heart of a by-the-numbers diversion that acts as if these particular dots have never been connected before.”

The Chicago Sun-Times: And Roger Ebert delivers the critical coup de grace:

“This new “Footloose” is a film without wit, humor or purpose. It sets up the town elders as old farts who hate rock ‘n’ roll. Does it have a clue that the Rev. Moore and all the other city council members are young enough that they grew up on rock ‘n’ roll? The film’s message is: A bad movie, if faithfully remade, will produce another bad movie.”

OK, Hollywood, now that you’ve gotten this out of your system, would you please, please, please stop remaking movies. The world doesn’t need another “Footloose,” and it doesn’t need a fifth installment of the “Die Hard” franchise either.

That is all.