Point Break

Dir: Ericson Core

2015

**

I'll be honest, I never loved the original 1991 Point Break. I found it to be enjoyable enough but extremely overrated. I like pretty much everything Patrick Swayze ever did and even though he isn't always the greatest performer, I have a soft spot for Keanu Reeves too. The bank-robbing scenes were pretty cool and the last scene is irresistibly cheesy but overall it is pretty generic. I certainly didn't think it warranted a remake and I’m sure the many hard-core fans, of which there are many, felt the same way. Still, if you're going to remake a film that is seen as a modern classic then you have to do the following; a) Make it similar but not exactly the same b) Best not repeat classic scenes but if you do, make it your own c) Add a twist. 2015's Point Break does all three to be fair but unfortunately, it does them badly. This film is basically The Fast and the Furious without the cars. It is a charmless, contrived and terribly written excuse for an action film. The film includes sky-diving, sky-diving on motorcycles, extreme surfing, extreme snowboarding, bare-knuckle fighting and lots and lots of expensive parties, all taking place in some of the world’s most beautiful locations, and yet, it all looks incredibly boring. These are amazing stunts, performed by the most talented and daring people on the planet but the film is just one long yawn-fest. It takes a horrible script, stupid story, naff editing and awful special effects to make such stunning feats so unimpressive. The problem is the audience is never really made to care about any of the characters. In this version the extreme bad-guys are hell-bent on completing the Ozaki 8, eight different extreme stunts that one has to complete in order to experience total enlightenment, or something stupid like that, it is never really explained fully. While performing these tasks, the small team of over-privileged and badly tattooed smug warriors go Robin Hood on the world by burying the worlds gold supply and throwing money out of a plane over poor Brazilian villages. In one scene they are seen to thrown billions of dollars’ worth of uncut diamond into the poor streets of Mumbai, ignoring the fact that this act would cause such a sharp peak of crime in the area that it would cause more grief to the people who caught the stones then if they had simply left them alone. The smug levels are pretty high. The extreme baddies repeat that they don't do it for the parties, money or women but when they're not throwing themselves off green-screen cliffs they are going to parties, spending money and/or dancing with women. The explanation of why they are doing all these things? You wouldn't understand. Correct, I don't but then neither do I care. It's a headache inducing mess. Luke Bracey is far more cardboard than Keanu has ever been, I like Edgar Ramirez but not in this role, Ray Winstone is an odd choice for Gary Busey replacement, his character is pointless and he shouldn't have wasted his time. Delroy Lindo too makes too few films these days to be wasting time on this nonsense, as good as he was here. Remakes are generally pointless but this seems more so as it completely misses the point about what made the original as well loved as it is. Bigger isn't always better, in this case, it is decidedly much worse.