The new movie is loosely based around the oft-quoted 1991 flick of the same name starring an on-the-rise Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze (in the prime of his career) as kindred surfer spirits on opposite sides of the law. We all remember the tale: Swayze’s bank-robbing Bodhi and Keanu’s crime-stopping Johnny Utah bond over extreme surfing, but the friendship is cut short when Johnny shuts down Bodhi’s gang of thieves and makes them pay for their sins.
The trailer for the new film starts out with a similar, if not much more grandiose, scene as the final moments of the original: extreme athletes jumping out of a plane. However, as the crew cuts open the massive blocks of cash they’ve liberated from the plane in an impressive bit of Hollywood stunt work, we see the bills dropping to earth on a third-world village, letting us in on the new slant: Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez) and his gang aren’t thugs, they’re anarchists looking to spread the wealth.
In turn, we see the new Johnny Utah (played by Luke Bracey) speaking to his FBI cohorts about Bodhi’s gang in near-reverence as we find out that these aren’t your boilerplate anarchist criminal masterminds with a penchant for wealth redistribution: They’re also extreme sports enthusiasts — just like Utah!
And, of course, that means … well, we’re not really sure what it means, except that this movie already appears to be trading off of a Fast and Furious flare for over-the-top stunts, but with an extreme sport decor. It’s a tack that could definitely work — the most recent of the perennial Furious franchise crossed the billion dollar mark faster (and furiouser?) than any film in the modern era before it, and the franchise shows no signs of slowing down.
However, whether or not the new film can capture Fast and Furious’s well-seasoned balance of grandeur and charismatic characters remains to be seen. Perhaps the most troubling part about the new trailer is the fact that Bracey’s take on Johnny Utah seems to be going for a full-on Keanu vibe which, let’s face it, barely works for Keanu himself. And lines like “The only law that matters is gravity” make us wish gravity would work a little harder on these characters.
Still, whether the new movie can offer something more than high-octane action, or not, the trailer leaves no doubt that the new film will serve up some breathtaking visuals, incredible stunts, and plenty of extreme-sport mayhem.
That alone could be enough to grab the new film big dollars overseas which, as anyone who’s been paying attention to blockbuster box office revenue these days knows, is really all that matters. Of course, with the latest Star Wars sequel coming out at the same time, Point Break is already behind the eight ball.
Along with Ramirez and Bracey, Point Break stars Teresa Palmer, Ray Winstone, and Delroy Lindo.
The reboot hits theaters Christmas day in a limited release, with more theaters to follow.
