everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Bad music (how was he inspired to do that warehouse routine to whatever that music was? I wasn't inspired to check the soundtrack list. I'm not against using "modern" music, but it needs to sound good and have a dance-able beat!) Julianne Hough seems to be about 30 with her cheerleader-worn voice, over-tan, and strip-pole dance moves (no, dad shouldn't be upset when he comes in the room to find me faux-effing some guy I barely know, who's a different guy than the one I've actually been effing{well, they left that kind of vague in the door-pulled-down scene, and when she was asked point-blank about it}- who appears to be around 30 as well, and she's a high-school student? 17 or 18? Nobody questioned that? potential statutory rape. Or the glossing over of her being beaten by him?) The lead WAS a brat, and I agree with another reviewer, completely unremarkable/memorable. boring! thankfully I saw it on DVD so I could fast-forward a lot, esp. the completely contrived and time-fill scene with the buses etc. on the racetrack. These kids actually WERE misbehaving! not just being screwed by over protective parents. As cheesy as much of it is, see the original instead. There can't be a spoiler because it's an almost complete remake (they barely tried to modernize it!) and because nothing happens.

Ren and Ariel dance and fall in love in a town where dancing is illegal for minors! It follows the original "Footloose" scene-for-scene in many places but the remake has a lot of energy and the necessary climatic dance scene does not disappoint. Kevin Bacon's charisma in the 1984 original is substituted here for the charisma of Julianne Hough in 2011. Ren's athletic skills as a big-city high school gymnast are again, understated. Basically a "fish-out-of-water" city boy becomes the subject of vicious small town gossip and is blamed for just about everything. He is framed for possessing a "joint" and gets an undeserved bad reputation as a troublemaker. Most entertaining in a "Grease" sort-of-way, including racing action. The critics never get it right and many of the "users" didn't like the remake. It's got a pretty-good soundtrack but in 1984, yeah, it was better. In the original version, there was book-burning, and that stupid idea is thankfully not in the remake. Very good dancing by all and most of it is fun to watch with a bit of overacting here and there. It's actually based on a true-life story about a small town that banned teen-aged dancing after a high school prom tragedy. Most of the film was "made in Georgia" and at realistic-looking locations. Some will argue that a remake was unnecessary as it was a rather "minor" film to begin with. The "box office" was exceptionally good, for a remake.

Have you seen it? No? There is likely a very good reason for that...it stinks.Like nearly ALL the endless remakes and reboots that have been plaguing movie goers for the past decade or so....all this is, is a heartless version of the original.It has no heart.It has no soul.It is a retelling of a film that we all love and cherish...and it adds nothing to the story. It improves nothing but the special effects--which held up very well over time--and in some cases belittles the fans of the original...particularly in the fact that they remade the movie at all, without adding anything clever to it.Like so many other remakes it is a hallow shell of the original.

It's enjoyable, though if you never watched the original and intend to watch both movie, watch this one first, so you won't be biased and saying this movie is not as good. Well in my opinion this is not as good as the original, but I might be biased, and to be honest it's not that bad to deserve less than 5 stars, even if you don't particularly like music or dance, or can't dance, at all.Both movie contain 98% same plot, just switched the time a bit and different minor plot, so you won't be missing a lot, it's just feel this kind of in a slower pace, but any other things are good, choice of actors is nice, not the best acting, but still, music is good too, most are new music of course, that's the purpose of this movie anyway, but they are all fits perfectly, and the classics are still here.I think this remake, in context of it, is good, although some people argue that this movie is pointless since it has the same storyline, but a remake doesn't always have to be a reboot. Still this is a good one to revive a classic to be enjoyed by current generation teenager.