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#240 - Point Break
Ericson Core, 2015
A rookie FBI agent goes undercover in order to infiltrate a gang of extreme sports enthusiasts responsible for committing acts of terrorism.
I get it, you know? Hollywood's a machine that'll take any remotely bankable property and resurrect it on the chance that whatever they turn out will make an easy profit off the less discerning demographics out there. While the originals are usually such singularly definitive works that a remake's alterations can be seen as tantamount to sacrilege, I still maintain a small shred of optimism that maybe those alterations can offer an interesting enough variation on an already-proven theme. In fairness, the original Point Break is far from perfect and is remembered mainly for being a slab of pure early-'90s cheese with an enjoyably weird twist on the undercover cop narrative (a bunch of surfers rob banks while wearing masks of former U.S. Presidents - who thinks of that?), so the remake more or less has to take itself seriously rather than try to one-up the original's cheese. I figured that I could at least try to accept this and, for a while, it seemed like I could. It helps that the gang's mission is different here - while the original had them do relatively modest bank robberies all over Southern California in order to finance their daredevil hobbies (to say nothing of the flimsy and hypocritical Zen philosophy espoused by Patrick Swayze's charismatic ringleader, Bodhi), here the gang are effectively international terrorists who are able to combine their love of extreme sports with benevolent crimes that intend to redistribute wealth and fight back against environmentally unfriendly corporate greed. It did make me think that maybe, just maybe, there would be some genuine potential in playing things straight...
...which unfortunately disintegrates somewhere around the twenty-minute mark. Cinematographer/director Core gives the film a somewhat distinctive look by taking the familiar orange-and-teal colour palette and taking it to its logical extreme by managing to wash out the entire film in teal. An unusual visual choice, to be sure, but it makes very little difference to the action scenes themselves as they indulge the characters' love of extreme sports to frequently numbing effect. Even the potential of the actual story is squandered for the most part on a collection of exceptionally flat characters. There is something to be said for the way that the film develops Bodhi (here given a compelling sense of serenity by Édgar Ramírez, who is definitely one of the film's few highlights) and his relationship with Johnny (Luke Bracey, who is sadly not the charming brand of wooden even when the character's given more detailed development), but this is ultimately a small success that can't stop the film from finding its place upon the ever-growing pile of aggressively passable remakes.
Ericson Core, 2015
A rookie FBI agent goes undercover in order to infiltrate a gang of extreme sports enthusiasts responsible for committing acts of terrorism.
I get it, you know? Hollywood's a machine that'll take any remotely bankable property and resurrect it on the chance that whatever they turn out will make an easy profit off the less discerning demographics out there. While the originals are usually such singularly definitive works that a remake's alterations can be seen as tantamount to sacrilege, I still maintain a small shred of optimism that maybe those alterations can offer an interesting enough variation on an already-proven theme. In fairness, the original Point Break is far from perfect and is remembered mainly for being a slab of pure early-'90s cheese with an enjoyably weird twist on the undercover cop narrative (a bunch of surfers rob banks while wearing masks of former U.S. Presidents - who thinks of that?), so the remake more or less has to take itself seriously rather than try to one-up the original's cheese. I figured that I could at least try to accept this and, for a while, it seemed like I could. It helps that the gang's mission is different here - while the original had them do relatively modest bank robberies all over Southern California in order to finance their daredevil hobbies (to say nothing of the flimsy and hypocritical Zen philosophy espoused by Patrick Swayze's charismatic ringleader, Bodhi), here the gang are effectively international terrorists who are able to combine their love of extreme sports with benevolent crimes that intend to redistribute wealth and fight back against environmentally unfriendly corporate greed. It did make me think that maybe, just maybe, there would be some genuine potential in playing things straight...
...which unfortunately disintegrates somewhere around the twenty-minute mark. Cinematographer/director Core gives the film a somewhat distinctive look by taking the familiar orange-and-teal colour palette and taking it to its logical extreme by managing to wash out the entire film in teal. An unusual visual choice, to be sure, but it makes very little difference to the action scenes themselves as they indulge the characters' love of extreme sports to frequently numbing effect. Even the potential of the actual story is squandered for the most part on a collection of exceptionally flat characters. There is something to be said for the way that the film develops Bodhi (here given a compelling sense of serenity by Édgar Ramírez, who is definitely one of the film's few highlights) and his relationship with Johnny (Luke Bracey, who is sadly not the charming brand of wooden even when the character's given more detailed development), but this is ultimately a small success that can't stop the film from finding its place upon the ever-growing pile of aggressively passable remakes.