The Movie:

Directed by Herbert Ross in 1984 and soon to be the subject of a big budget remake, Footloose stars Kevin Bacon as Ren McCormack who has just moved from the big city to a small mid-western town smack dab in the middle of the 'Bible Belt.' Unprepared for the culture shock that this ultimately entails, he soon learns that what would fly in his last place of residence won't fly here. This is a small community of very conservative citizens who have, for religious reasons, banned dancing and pop music - some even feel that these elements have lead to a few recent and unfortunate teenagers getting killed before their time. At the forefront of this conservative movement in town is Reverend Shaw Moore (John Lithgow), a fire and brimstone preacher who espouses the ways of the world and who looks none too kindly on Ren and what Moore sees as his loose morals.

Ren finds himself in a couple of hot spots soon after he arrives and as such the Reverend is none too happy when his own daughter, Ariel Moore (Lori Singer), takes a liking to the new arrival despite the fact that she's got a jealous boyfriend. She's more or less been repressed her entire life and she sees Ren as an outlet to have some fun and maybe get back at her overbearing father a little bit at the same time. As the pressure mounts on Ren to do as the townsfolk want him to do, he finally decides that he's had enough and decides to show anyone and everyone he can that there's nothing inherently wrong with having some fun on the dance floor - especially since the prom is fast approaching.

Footloose isn't an overly complicated story rich with deeper meaning or complex symbolism and in fact, it's pretty darn simple when you get right down to it. You know where it's going pretty early on in the movie and in reality it's a pretty predictable film offering up very little in the way of suspense or mystery. The signals are there, the story more or less telegraphs where it's going well before it bothers to actually go there and much of the film seems somewhat heavy handed and pedestrian in hindsight. With that said, it's still a pretty enjoyable movie - a fun slice of eighties pop culture and a time capsule of sorts for that decade. Hitting theaters a few years before Dirty Dancing would start a landslide of dance movies, Footloose isn't concerned with sex appeal like that later movie and its many imitators are so much as it is with character development and this turns out to be what saves the movie.

While the Ren McCormack character may not go down in history as one of the deepest and most through provoking silver screen characters to ever strut in front of a camera, the script at least makes sure we get to like him enough to want to see how he's going to handle this. We know he's going to win everyone over, that much is simple enough to understand, but we want to know how. We want to know if his relationship with the equally likable Ariel is going to work out or if her father is going to make sure it doesn't happen. It might be corny and it might be hamfisted but we want them to be able to make it work. As far as her father goes, he's not really a villain even if he is the primary source of conflict in the film. His intentions are good, even if they are misguided, and Lithgow really steals the show here. Bacon is charismatic enough as the fleetfooted lead and Lori Singer is fun to look at but Lithgow is the actor here who makes the biggest impression particularly once his sermons start to intensify and things heat up in the pulpit.

Featuring a few instantly identifiable hits like Kenny Loggins' title track, Deniece Williams' 'Let's Hear It For The Boy,' Quiet Riot's 'Bang Your Head' and John Mellencamp's 'Hurt So Good' the movie goes along at a good pace and it makes for a fun and fairly family friendly watch even now, more than twenty-five years after it was made.

Video:

While Paramount presents Footloose in a 1.78.1 widescreen aspect ratio in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer, this disc doesn't improve on the DVD nearly as much as it should have primarily because the new transfer is a smeary, DNR'd mess. Noise reduction runs rampant here, rendering natural skin tones and textures into wax and sucking out a lot of the detail. While the colors generally look pretty good and object detail is usually fine, the waxy skin is way too obvious and it really hurts the presentation. On top of that, what should be a natural layer of film grain instead turns clumpy and looks to stand still at times, hovering around in the background and looking very unnatural. There are moments in darker scenes where compression artifacts and very noticeable crush are a big problem as well, and shadow detail is weak. Edge enhancement isn't super obvious, but it's there too and overall, this transfer is a very big disappointment.