Point Break is another empty remake, a husk of what the original was. The movie reminds me a lot of 2014’s remake of RoboCop. It’s missing everything that makes the original memorable and great.
The plot is boring and the characters are dull and forgettable. Keanu Reeves, plays Johnny Utah in the original. He isn’t the greatest actor, but left his mark in every movie. Everyone else from the original were distinctive too. Well, the Ex-Presidents were mostly background character, except for Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) of course.
The robbers in the Point Break remake are mostly background characters too. The only difference is even Bodhi (Edgar Ramírez) doesn’t stand apart much. The only way he does, I’ve seen him in other movies. All three are tall guys with dark hair and beards. Even right now, I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup.
That leads me to the females of both movies. In the original, Tyler (Lori Petty) had a use, she was teaching Utah how to surf. If her character wasn’t there, Utah wouldn’t have learned to surf, he wouldn’t have had an in with Bodhi and the Ex-Presidents. Sure he fell for her and that’s typical, but she had a real purpose.
In the Point Break remake, this character is apparently different… different name at least. Samsara Dietz (Teresa Palmer) is Utah’s love interest, but she adds nothing and doesn’t do anything to move the plot along. Even when Utah (Luke Bracey) is in a dire situation, it’s not her that saves him, it’s Bodhi.
I don’t want to take anything away from Palmer as an actress. I think she does a fine job on screen. Unfortunately her character feels completely shoehorned in for no reason, other than to have Utah fall for her. If you took her out of the movie almost nothing would change.
In the original Utah is just an FBI agent, new to the agency. He wasn’t a surfer, it was a challenge he had to learn and overcome. The remake Utah used to do extreme sports. That’s until an unfortunate mistake. The movie fast forwards seven years and now Utah is becoming a Fed.
That makes it very convenient for the plot, seeing as the gang are into extreme sports. In the original, Utah had to find the Ex-Presidents. Here not only does he basically know who they are from the beginning, but being an extreme sports junkie there’s nothing for him to really overcome. It also makes it easy for him to predict their next move, always.
I will give the remake some credit for trying to be different from the original, but it’s more complex. The original Point Break was simple. Surfers were robbing banks to pay for their endless summer. A very straight forward plot. Honestly, that’s a large reason it’s memorable.
This time the gang isn’t just robbing banks. They’re trying to complete the Ozaki 8, a list of extreme ordeals to honor the forces of nature or something like that. While doing so they’re stealing large amounts of money and even giving some to the peasants. Basically another bad take on what Robin Hood was doing.
It’s another convenience that these “ordeals” are in situations where the gang can also steal loads of money. That said, the action of these scenes are great. There is the surfing and skydiving, but also others things like snowboarding and rock climbing.
Point Break tries to create empathy for the gang and their beliefs, why they’re doing all of this. Something I feel we see far too often in movies these days… or in 2015. Yes, the original had similarities to this, but it was still largely just the Ex-Presidents being greedy.
I understand this review is loaded with comparisons to the original and normally I would try to always separate from the original in reviews of remakes, but that’s all this movie offers. Again, it’s like the RoboCop remake in that there’s nothing there, except that it’s a remake of a better movie.
Some changes are good, but most are for the worst. Even when they hijack scenes from the original for this remake, they manage to make them worse. Point Break is a perfect example of not only a horrible remake, but a bastardization of the original. I remember why I’ve never cared to see it again.
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