Miles Teller and Kenny Wormald from "Footloose." Photo Credit: K.C. Bailey.

The slick sugarcoated remake of Footloose (2011) has trouble standing on its own without a love of the original, and can barely be compared to a classic like West Side Story (1961).

For one thing, it’s hard to say that Footloose is even a musical.  Much of the music in this remake is used as a soundtrack, especially in one very melodramatic scene in which the protagonist, Ren MacCormack, dances out his anger as he talks to himself.   This scene is an example of the many holes in the script—it is bland and negates its own best qualities with overly emotional scenes like this one.

The best part of Footloose’s plot is that there is no easy-to-blame villain—the parents of Bomont’s impulse to ban dancing is understandable, considering the accident that killed many of their children; Ren and his gang’s desires to dance are also reasonable.  This complicated conflict without a right or wrong is similar to that of West Side Story, where neither the Jets nor the Shark are innocent and both are victims throughout the movie.

However, the problems in Bomont seem pretty easily solved once Shaw Moore, the town’s reverend and main supporter of the dance ban comes around when his daughter Ariel wants to attend a dance.  The problems in West Side Story are rooted much deeper in the Jets’ racial prejudice against the Puerto Rican Sharks and the danger of gang activities.  Yes, in the final scene of the movie the gangs come together to help carry Tony, but it is clear that Maria and Anita, along with the Sharks and the Jets, still have a long way to go.

Both movies are fun to watch—the music, cinematography, and dancing is constantly great in West Side Story and Footloose is reliably entertaining.  Yet when the credits roll, West Side Story left me thinking, while Footloose left me with an empty feeling that everything was resolved just a little too easily.