Written by Bill Bodkin & Justin Matchick
Warning – Foul Language Ahead
Release Date: December 25, 2015
Starring: Luke Bracey, Victor Ramirez, Delroy Lindo, Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer
Director: Ericson Core
Pre-Trailer Thought: Blasphemous as it may be to some, I have never seen the original Point Break. But I do know that it is enough of a cult classic that many of its devotees are very upset with the idea of the Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze action thriller being remade/rebooted. Hollywood’s reliance on reboots has been a major point of contention over the past decade and a half as more and more fan favorites are put through the cogs of the industry and popped out as limp imitations of the originals (Total Recall, Robocop, and the recent Poltergeist are notable offenders). Can Point Break buck the trend? – JTM
Pre-Trailer Thought: Fun fact – Pop-Break.com is named after Point Break. True story. I even met Keanu Reeves once and told him. He appreciated it. Here are my pre-trailer feelings about a Point Break remake:
Rate the Trailer: 1 out of 5. I tried to find a reason to give this a 2 or maybe even a 3, but I really just found nothing redeeming about the trailer. The whole film has a washed out color scheme that dulls everything and even makes the “extreme” action scenes boring to look at. Lines like “The people behind these robberies are extreme athletes.” sound so ridiculous I can’t help but laugh. I’ve never heard of either of the actors taking over the Reeves and Swayze roles. Based on how the trailer markedly showed us as much of the action and as little of the actors as possible (and the scenes we did see of them had the charisma of a CSPAN broadcast) I have a sinking feeling that they’re not very good. – JTM
Rate the Trailer: O out of 5. I need a drink. Seriously.
Theater, Rent, Undecided, No Thanks: No Thanks. Add another movie to the pile of movie remakes that will be forgotten long before their source material. Nobody was asking for a Point Break remake and I’m sure as hell that nobody asked for it to be as drab and gray looking as possible. Point Break opens on Christmas Day which means you’ll have a lot of opportunities over the holidays to see friends and family and tell them not to see this film. – JTM
Theater, Rent, Undecided, No Thanks: Fuck This Movie. You heard me. Fuck this movie.
Here’s everything wrong with this film…
Listen, I understand Point Break is never going to be on the AFI Top 200. I’m not stupid. I understand there’s dunderheaded dialogue, sometimes the acting is shaky, the whole Lori Petty is someone Keanu Reeves wants to bang angle is pretty unbelievable — but this is still a good movie. The surfing cinematography, the sky diving cinematography, the action sequences, the famous foot chase sequence — all withstand the test of time. They’re fucking breathtakingly good. The chemistry between Reeves and Gary Busey, between Patrick Swayze and Reeves, hell between Swayze and the Ex-Presidents is dynamite. It’s fun, it’s thrilling, it’s exciting — it’s what an action movie should be. I love this movie. I love it without a shred of irony. The dialogue is so quotable, and it’s a movie I watched probably 100 times since I first saw it 20 years ago.
This remake, though. Fucking piece of shit. Gas station burrito fueled bloody diarrhea on film. First, you eliminate the Ex-Presidents which was a really unique gimmick that drew people in in the trailers The crew also became an iconic piece of pop culture, synonymous with the film, and eventually became the stuff of great t-shirts. Here? Just a bunch of randos with that weird dude with the barely understandable accent from Bourne Ultimatum in it.
The Ex-Presidents were also interesting, because for the majority of the film you like them. Seriously, they aren’t bad dudes…when they aren’t robbing banks. They aren’t violent, they never fire a shot — in and out, grab some cash and go. We can live with this evil inside of them…until they get greedy. When they get greedy that’s when shit goes down, and we don’t like them anymore and we, like Johnny Utah, realize these are actually VILLAINS. Here these four douchenozzles are ‘liberating money’ but ‘willing to kill anyone in their way.’ So despite the fact we see them giving money to the poor and indigent, they’re going to MURDER people. Guess what that makes them? TERRORISTS. You know who most people hate? FUCKING TERRORISTS! You can’t get on these guys’ side. Also, (in the original) when the Presidents, particularly Bodhi, gets greedy and wants to up the thrill by ‘going for the vault’ which results in too many people dying — he’s actually gone against his creed of finding the spiritual side of thrill-seeking. In the new film, he’s just a common criminal. That turn is a HUGE moment in the original film. Here, we already know Bodhi is a criminal, a killer, and a thrill seeker. Kinda ruined that, right?
Keanu Reeves didn’t win an Oscar for being Johnny Utah, but sweet mother of all that is holy, Luke Bracey comes off like the worst actor ever to be on screen since Brian Bosworth. Shit, he might be worse than The Boz. ‘Like these men, I’m an extreme athlete.’ What studio exec thought, ‘Oh, that’s a good bit of dialogue.’ What editor thought, ‘Oh let’s keep that in the trailer.’ What director didn’t say, ‘Hey that’s a good performance!’ Bracey goes through this trailer looking like he’s come off a heroin bender, had sex with too many filthy prostitutes and it stings when pees.
Oh, and whoever did the CGI for the surfing sequences – please quit the movie industry. It’s horrible. Also, you can do the practical effects for this sky diving and that random body gliding stuff, why not surfing? Why not follow the example of the original film, and hide the faces of the non-surfers. This looked like shit.
I could go on for hours, days even, why this trailer is a fucking cinematic abomination. But, if this film had NOT been named POINT BREAK, it’d be fine. But, instead Hollywood decides to cash in a cult classic. For what? To capitalize on hate watching? Nostalgia? Or a reason that a blatant Fast & Furious clone won’t be a colossal clusterfuck at the box office?
I hate everything, I mean EVERYTHING about this trailer, and this movie’s existence.
