Review: “Point Break” Misses Any Kind of Point

In Alcon Entertainment’s fast-paced, high-adrenaline action thriller “Point Break,” a young FBI agent, Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey), infiltrates a cunning team of thrill-seeking elite athletes – led by the charismatic Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez). The athletes are suspected of carrying out a spate of crimes in extremely unusual ways.

Deep undercover, and with his life in imminent danger, Utah strives to prove they are the architects of this string of inconceivable crimes.

Christmas Day is one of the busiest days of the year for movie theaters, and this holiday came with a plethora of movies to choose from. Star Wars may still be dominating the box office but you could have also gone to see Leonardo DiCaprio survive the wilderness in The Revenant or watch Quentin Tarantino’s new film The Hateful Eight. If you’re an indie-film lover, chances are you may have even taken in a showing of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender.

And then, at the bottom of the barrel, after you scrape away all that remains, you will find Point Break. Well, maybe not at the bottom of the barrel. Point Break is after the barrel has been taken away, hosed down, and the waste-water drips down into the gutter, flows into the sewers, and co-mingles amongst the rats, bacteria, and mythical sewer-gators. Point Break is, to put it bluntly, shit.

Point Break is another unnecessary remake that was beloved by certain circles. The original film starred Keanu Reeves as FBI agent Johnny Utah who infiltrates a group of bank robbers that love to surf during their down-time. Utah forms a relationship with a woman named Tyler who teaches him to surf and introduces him to the robbers group. The leader of said group is Bodhi, played by Patrick Swayze. Utah and Bodhi form a bond as strong as brothers and eventually Utah lets Bodhi go free.

The new movie decided to make some changes to the plot. Johnny Utah played by Luke Bracey is already an accomplished extreme-sports-YouTube-star-turned-FBI-agent who is hunting down a group of eco-terrorists led by a man named Bodhi, played by Edgar Ramirez. For the remainder of the article, I shall refer to Bracey and Ramirez as [Terrible Actor #1] and [Terrible Actor #2], respectively. Bodhi believes that if he and his group of indistinguishable bearded, tattooed, steroid gurus complete eight separate extreme sports stunts they will become one with the Earth and thus, save it from greenhouse gases and pollution. This plot was so ridiculous and unbelievable (especially when you compare it to the simplicity of the original) that I found myself searching for any kind of rope or extension cord that I could promptly use to form a makeshift noose.

The new Point Breaks’ plot is riddled with as many holes as a block of swiss cheese at a gun range, and the actors are the bullets.  The movie decided to try and throw in the love story between Utah and Tyler (originally portayed by Tank Girls’ Lori Petty) who, while in the original movie actually served a purpose, is only on screen this time to be eye candy and has a handful of lines. Every single actor in this movie is dry, emotionless, and just plain boring. Even veteran actors Delroy Lindo and Ray Winstone (Pappas) seemed to only be there to collect a check.

Production in Point Break is terrible as well. Every scene may be an excuse to throw in all the extreme sports that are currently popular on Youtube like wingsuit gliding, but scenes that should be simple such as Utah and Bodhi talking on a boat lack any sense of style or direction, and is badly put together from green screen studios. I will say, however, the stock footage of landscapes and helicopter shots of mountains were pleasant to look at. This was only pleasant when [TERRIBLE ACTOR #1] or [TERRIBLE ACTOR #2] were not on screen. It was disappointing to see that even after they spent $120 million to make this movie, you would be better entertained to simply go on YouTube and watch real people perform the same stunts with GoPro cameras. Should you choose to not go on YouTube and instead go to the movies, heed my warnings and avoid Point Break ; especially if you consider yourself a fan of the original.

Warning: Illegal string offset 'Movie' in /home/themov15/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-review-pro/includes/functions.php on line 2358