This year’s ‘Footloose’ is a remake of the 1984 film of the same name, and the original film’s influence is obvious. This new version, directed by ‘Hustle & Flow’s’ Craig Brewer, maintain’s the original’s laughably ridiculous plot, but is still able to have fun and entertain. Remakes are usually terrible, but this new ‘Footloose’ strays from that downward trend, while at the same time doesn’t achieve anything worth praising. This is a film that’s good at what it is, and that’s all there is to it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Three years before the meat of the film, a group of high school teenagers in Bomont, Georgia got into a car crash and died. They were coming back from a night of partying and dancing so of course the logical cause of this tragedy is the dancing. The leaders of Bomont, including Reverend Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid), agree to outlaw dancing because it associates too much with partying, drinking, and other heinous acts.

In present-day Bomont, Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald, from ‘Center Stage: Turn It Up’) is the new kid in town. With a good-for-nothing father and a mother who recently passed away from leukemia, Ren moves from Boston to Bomont to live with his aunt’s family. There he befriends the goofy Willard Hewitt (Miles Teller, from last year’s fantastic film ‘Rabbit Hole’) and begins falling for the reverend’s beautiful daughter, Ariel Moore (Julianne Hough, from ‘Dancing With the Stars’).

Whereas Ren keeps accidentally getting into trouble because of the town’s unusual laws, Ariel lives for trouble. She’s the wild type and has a huge jerk of a boyfriend. Ren and Ariel have a common interest in dancing, which bonds the two.

Now, the dancing in this ‘Footloose’ is the best part of the film. There’s a variety of different dancing styles featured in the film, including line-dancing, krumping, and the usual hip-hop. The dance sequences are definitely good and entertaining, though they’re nowhere near as great or memorable as 2007’s remake of ‘Hairspray’, or even ‘High School Musical 3’.

This remake is essentially a beat-for-beat copy of the original that’s given a modern update. Because it features the same unbelievable plot as the original, there are some stupid scenes kept in the final cut of this remake. I’m talking about the bus racing scene. Sure, it’s not as ridiculous as the original film’s tractor scene, but this new one involving a bus race is almost pointless.

‘Footloose’ succeeds in being an entertaining and fun film about good-hearted kids who love to dance. It’s a remake that’s definitely unnecessary (and ‘Dirty Dancing’ remake is in the works now), but at least it isn’t downright terrible.

Two and a half out of four Kents.