Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Point Break (2015)

Would you rather munch a slice o' 'za or chew on a handful of rocks?  Sip some tasty whiskey or guzzle gasoline?  Those two choices will confirm with Zoltar-like accuracy whether the Point Break remake is for you.

1991's original Point Break was cheesier than a Wisconsin wedding and as welcome as a shot of the good stuff.  The 2015 do-over takes itself more seriously than a goth teen.  It wouldn't know a good time if it was balls deep in one.

The surfing bank robbers led by Patrick "Dalton" Swayze have been replaced by extreme sports "poly-athletes" who pull crimes not to finance their endless summer (which makes sense) but, instead, to honor Mother Earth or some such yakshit (which makes zero fucking sense).

By the by, "poly-athlete" is so not a real thing that Googling it doesn't bring up a single meaningful result.  NOT ONE RESULT!  ON ALL OF THE INTERWEBS!! 

People's biggest complaint about the 1991 version was Keanu Reeves' "acting."  In the new Break, Reeves' part is played by Luke Bracey "Yourself For A Short Career."  His performance is so stiff it could be sold as a Viagra substitute.  It's so wooden you could build a picket fence out of it.

As the new Bodhi, Edgar "Telenovela" Ramirez isn't fit to carry Swayze's Sex Wax.  Where Swayze's Bodhi spouted believable fortune cookie crap and had an obvious love of the outlaw life, Ramirez' take is all pouty, mumbling, First World guilt, which is as much fun as a hot poker up your pee hole.

Back in '91, director Kathryn "Big Kat" Bigelow made shots of Bodhi and the Ex-Presidents surfing 6-footers look like the height of daredevildom.  New director Ericson "Hollow" Core replaces 6-footers with 25-footers, skydiving with a wingsuit flight through the Alps and adds in some Fight Club style boxing, free climbing and motocross landslide dodging . . . and still can't get anyone's heart rate up.  Including his bored-looking cast.

The first time out, "point break" logically referred to a point break in surfing.  Now it just means "the point at which one breaks."  Fucking poetry.  Mountain Doofuses. 

The love interest in 1991 was Lori "Tank Girl" Petty's Tyler.  She starts off by saving the hero's life and goes on to play a sexy, sassy, central role in the movie.  Tyler becomes Samsara here.  She's a sex object, a living blowup doll, and nothing else. 

You've come a long way, baby.

Fuck the new Point Break!  You'll get the same effect smashing yourself in the forehead with a hammer then watching X Games clips on YouTube with some faux-Zen massage parlor music playing in the background.

January 3, 2016