WARNING: Minor nostalgia and deprecation on Hollywood.
At first, you try not to care because this is a new generation. Then a remake of a film you like happens. You try to rationalize it but then you see the trailer and it’s so awful it makes you want to give up on life. Exaggeration? Yes, but the justification gets more palpable when you hear incredibly dumb lines. We assume Hollywood has run out of ideas but there are piles of scripts they don’t use. They do remakes because old scripts have proven successful. Other than that, they believe you’re stupid enough to see whatever if it has CGI and boobs in it. Sadly, they’ve been proven right a few times. This is a discussion for the trailer of the remake of Point Break.
This Point Break is directed by Ericson Core and stars Luke Bracey and Edgar Ramirez. An FBI agent with the last name Utah joins a gang of thieves who target corporations. This gang and their leader, Bodhi, are extreme sports athletes similar to Utah. That is where I stopped caring. Why would you use the term “extreme sports athletes” instead of adrenaline junkies, daredevils, skydivers, air acrobats, pro aerialists, athlete aerialists or my favorite term, “criminals”.
A big reason this film doesn’t work is because it is set in the here and now. In the 90’s, a group of action junkies robbing banks was a novel idea because we didn’t have the internet. Before action movies with Keanu, Arnold and Sly, we had John Wayne or Paul Newman who just pulled triggers and rode horses. With the advent of the internet, we obtain instant gratification and thus grow more weary and bored. We’re already exposed to the most current ideas. Hence the question, why should I care about a gang of Robin Hoods who rob corporations? Is it because a bunch of corporations have screwed over most of the real world? Maybe I should ignore the fact that they still kill innocent people. This brings me to the next thing.
At some level, at some point in the story, the audience should identify with the main antagonist. If it matches the original film’s narrative, Utah builds a man-crush on Bodhi. Utah represents the audience’s perspective because he becomes part of the “extreme sports athletes” as we follow along. He has to identify with Bodhi to truly be “undercover” and that means the audience has to understand and identify with him as well. Learning that he “liberates” money from corporations does not lessen the distance I would maintain because he kills people indiscriminately as the trailer suggests. He is supposed to be the charismatic zen-like leader. My view of his character is composed of euphemisms I’m not sure I can use here without approval from my editor.
“Point break” refers to a surfing term “when a wave breaks as it hits a point of land jutting out from the coastline.” I saw no beaches or sandy coastline anywhere in this trailer. They’re relying on the appeal of the name without knowing a thing about it. At this point, I don’t even have more to say about the narrative, so let’s move on to the actors. Mr. Bracey, I want to give actors I’ve never seen before a chance to impress but please get a personality. The impression I get from his acting in this trailer, it’s like staring at a blank page. Resting on pretty will not work forever.
Finally, there is something incredibly lacking here that could have saved this movie. That something is Gary Busey. Yes, yes, I know this is something completely out of left field but this movie definitely needed that Busey magic. He is probably the only man in the world who knows the layout of heaven as he has claimed. Okay, he’s a bit crazy but he’s no more crazy than the man who preaches Bible passages on the subway. Additionally, he brings that meta-connection to the original movie. Also, he could represent the evolution of insanity that has taken over before our very eyes in Hollywood.
Point Break (2015) comes out December 25th in the U.S and January 8th 2016 in the U.K. For other release dates, please forgive me.
…it’s your money, I won’t tell you how to spend it but please think twice.
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(top image source: Warner Bros. Pictures)
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