Point Break – Review

Point Break Review:

Surfers are traded in for extreme sports athletes in this barely average remake displaying Luke Bracey’s Johnny Utah as he goes undercover to catch Edgar Ramirez’s gang of thrill seekers, whom seek to do many dangerous things.

I was looking forward to this remake, I’m a big fan of the original Point Break from 1991 with Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves in the leads, running around deliberately not shooting each other out of some kind of respect and understanding for one another. However the essence of all that manly testosterone seems non existent in this remake, despite several scenes attempting to inject some into the film, it all seems to come across very flat.

The two leads have swapped hair styles in this remake, utterly defeating a point the original was trying to convey, the free spirited, nature loving outlaw is supposed to have surfer hair, not the clean cut FBI agent who secretly longs for such freedom but ultimately obeys the law. Justifying his surfer hair, this new Johnny Utah is also an extreme sports athlete, making him a former YouTube star as a result, apparently no one can exist without YouTube in this film. Yes you read me right, YouTube gets a mention, easily the biggest indicator of how times have changed since the original, also possibly why it just doesn’t work today. The down side of our hero already being an extreme athlete is it leaves him with little more to learn, thus undermining the point of any male bonding. I wonder if director Ericson Core has even seen the kathryn Bigelow original, or if he’s just been told to cater for some stunts.

The action has gone global, with a visual feast of picturesque views on display, plus there’s plenty of falling from great highs to entertain a new generation. For what it’s worth Ray Winstone pops up in the Gary Busey role, but is strangely tame, strangely quiet, seemingly holding back his usual intensity for reasons unknown. If indeed this film was aiming for something different, it certainly achieved its goal.

You might think at this point I’ll say the film is a waste of time, although had I not seen the original, I may feel slightly different. Edgar Ramirez can be a respectable, reliable actor, and is mostly so here, if his motives are a bit cloudy, he remains one of the few high points, and the films general underwhelming effect seems only lifted in his presence.

As to whether or not we actually needed a remake, is a debate for another time, if we did, it should have been a lot better than this, I can’t recommend it in light of how poor it is compared to the original, which if you haven’t seen, then you definitely should.

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Written by:

Michael Fraser
Work Experience Contributor

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