Parents' Guide to Footloose

Many remakes are unnecessary or downright depressing, so there's an element of surprise when one is actually decent. Director Craig Brewer's (Hustle & Flow) take on the iconic '80s movie manages to be believably "new" while remaining quite faithful to the original -- from the overall storyline to some nearly shot-for-shot, line-by-line sequences. Brewer's updates, in fact, are all quite subtle -- the locations are different (Ren's home city is Boston instead of Chicago, to accommodate McCormack's native accent, and he moves to Georgia instead of Oklahoma), the cast now includes a more diverse group of students, the teens' dancing is more modern, and Ren is motherless, making him yet another underdog movie orphan you can't help but root to win.

But for the most part, everything else is familiar -- and for once, that's a good thing. Wormald has an elfin James Dean quality that makes him cute but not distractingly edgy or sexy. He's got a winning smile and amazing dancing skills (better than Kevin Bacon's), and his scenes teaching pal Willard (Teller channels the best of the late Chris Penn's performance) to boogie are again some of the best in the movie. Hough sheds her ballroom-dancing pro persona (although there's a joke thrown in just for Dancing with the Stars fans) to seem like a real actress, but her portrayal takes a backseat to Wormald and Teller's. Dennis Quaid's minister isn't as fire-and-brimstone intense as the original's John Lithgow, but his tone is just the right balance of conflicted and protective. While this remake may not be the cultural touchstone that Bacon's version became, it's toe-tapping fun for teens and nostalgic parents.