Who’s in it? Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell
The plot We could just put our hands on our hips, adopt a ‘Girlfriend, pleeease!’ pose, allow our chin to drop in disbelief and say, ‘Duh! Haven’t you seen the original’ when it comes to discussing the plot here… but we won’t. Not least because we wouldn’t get to rave about how much more awesome the dancing in this new version is.
Story-wise, there are no surprises here; following the untimely death of his mother, city boy, Ren MacCormack (Wormald), rocks up in Bomont, Georgia, to find that the ‘no dancing or rock music’ rule Reverend Shaw Moore (Quaid) enforced on the inhabitants of the small town three years after his son Bobby and his friends were killed in a car crash after a night out dancing, is still in place.
Making fast friends with Willard Hewitt (Miles Teller), pretty soon Ren’s lusting after the resident bad girl, Ariel (Hough) and finds himself challenged to a game of chicken (in a bus this time rather than a forklift truck) with Ariel’s meathead boyfriend, Chuck (Patrick John Fleuger). After winning the girl, Ariel shows Ren the secret places where the local kids gather to bust a move, or whatever it is kids do these days – which is where this version trumps the original.
The moves are as fantastic as you’d expect in this music video age, and Wormald and Hough more than hold their own in the shadow of Bacon and Singer. Going up against the council to get the ruling overturned, Ren finds an unlikely ally in Moore’s wife, Vi (MacDowell) and… oh c’mon, you know the rest. Let’s dance!
Rating 3 out of 5
