We recently watched Point Break, the new one.
The first Point Break movie (1991) was an action, robber/cop drama where
Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is a new FBI recruit who breaks into an extreme
surfing group led by Bodhi (Patrick Swayze). Bodhi and his gang funded their
extravagant surfing lifestyle by robbing banks. It was a hit at the time appealing especially
to teens (of which I was one!) and became a classic that my generation can
quote from. Of course it was also
violent, glamorised crime, and made you want the bad guys to win and pleased
when Utah compromised his job and ethics.
The new one (2015) is even worse. In the remake the same characters are there
– Johnny Utah and Bodhi, but instead of the simple story of robbing banks to
complete some sort of mystical experience (and fuel your own lifestyle), now
there is hashed message of environmental nihilism. They are trying to complete the Ozaki 8 – a
group of extreme challenges (rockclimbing, surfing, skydiving, etc). These scenes are incredible – the surfing is
impressive, the snowboarding is nailbiting, the rock climbing amazing, and the
wingsuit flying sequence is possibly the most dangerous stunt in any
movie. Reading how they did it on
Wikipedia is impressive.
Yet, their belief is that they must pay
back the earth for this experience with offerings, and so are happy to rob
banks and companies releasing money and diamonds to give to poor villages. They have no problems killing people or
causing mayhem to ‘free’ the earth. So
exploding gold from a mine and causing an avalanche that kills mine workers is
no problem. If they die along their
path, so be it, they’ll see each other later.
What rubbish.
The cast is unremarkable – I found it hard
to remember who was who. There is no fun
in any of it, unlike the occasional light-heartedness of the first one. And the storyline is so unbelievable we
actually laughed out loud at some of the dialogue.
In hindsight, we should have checked the
reviews more carefully - Rotten Tomatoes did give it only 9%!
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