Post by johartuk on Jun 11, 2017 23:30:16 GMT
Did anyone else see this?
From the frankly bizarre beginning and end bits set in 1974, where Baby is in a theatre watching a Broadway show called Dirty Dancing (straight away I was confused, asking myself "Did that caption say 1974? Dirty Dancing didn't exist then, let alone as a Broadway show!") to the songs which had all been re-recorded for some unfathomable reason, with varying degrees of success (Hungry Eyes autotuned to within an inch of its life and sung by some boy who sounded like he hadn't gone through puberty yet? I've Had The Time Of My Life sung by Baby and Johnny, with Baby's parents randomly joining in?).
Then there were 'added bits', including a sub-plot where Baby's parents were on the verge of splitting up, and Baby's older sister dumping the college boy waiter early on in proceedings and ending up bonding with a black musician, which really weren't needed. I get that they wanted to avoid making the new version an exact copy of the original, but the additions didn't sit right. I think another problem was that the whole thing was being done from a 21st century perspective, so there was no sense of the period in which it was set - everything looked and sounded too modern. It also felt too serious. I remember there being occasional funny moments in the original - Max Kellerman's lisp (making the line he sang in the Kellerman's song "...visitors, staff and guests..." rather more entertaining than it otherwise would have been), his geeky nephew, Baby's sister having delusions of talent (the 'end of season show' scene when she kept veering off key was hilarious), the tiny old couple who kept appearing in the background or wandering randomly in front of the camera (and who turned out to have a key role in the story). I missed the funny moments interspersed with the serious stuff.
I liked Nicole Scherzinger as Penny - I felt sympathy for the character as I did when watching the original film. The actress playing Baby looked older than the actress playing her older sister - I think the actress playing the older sister would have made a better Baby. I also thought that the actor playing Johnny was too clean-cut. He lacked the whole 'bad boy' vibe (and the wonderful Southern accent) that Patrick Swayze had. Swayze was completely believable as the young man from the wrong side of the tracks, whereas 2017 Johnny wasn't.
The ending was plain odd - it felt downbeat and a bit sad. They should have dispensed with that and ended it with I've Had The Time Of My Life scene (as in the original film).
From the frankly bizarre beginning and end bits set in 1974, where Baby is in a theatre watching a Broadway show called Dirty Dancing (straight away I was confused, asking myself "Did that caption say 1974? Dirty Dancing didn't exist then, let alone as a Broadway show!") to the songs which had all been re-recorded for some unfathomable reason, with varying degrees of success (Hungry Eyes autotuned to within an inch of its life and sung by some boy who sounded like he hadn't gone through puberty yet? I've Had The Time Of My Life sung by Baby and Johnny, with Baby's parents randomly joining in?).
Then there were 'added bits', including a sub-plot where Baby's parents were on the verge of splitting up, and Baby's older sister dumping the college boy waiter early on in proceedings and ending up bonding with a black musician, which really weren't needed. I get that they wanted to avoid making the new version an exact copy of the original, but the additions didn't sit right. I think another problem was that the whole thing was being done from a 21st century perspective, so there was no sense of the period in which it was set - everything looked and sounded too modern. It also felt too serious. I remember there being occasional funny moments in the original - Max Kellerman's lisp (making the line he sang in the Kellerman's song "...visitors, staff and guests..." rather more entertaining than it otherwise would have been), his geeky nephew, Baby's sister having delusions of talent (the 'end of season show' scene when she kept veering off key was hilarious), the tiny old couple who kept appearing in the background or wandering randomly in front of the camera (and who turned out to have a key role in the story). I missed the funny moments interspersed with the serious stuff.
I liked Nicole Scherzinger as Penny - I felt sympathy for the character as I did when watching the original film. The actress playing Baby looked older than the actress playing her older sister - I think the actress playing the older sister would have made a better Baby. I also thought that the actor playing Johnny was too clean-cut. He lacked the whole 'bad boy' vibe (and the wonderful Southern accent) that Patrick Swayze had. Swayze was completely believable as the young man from the wrong side of the tracks, whereas 2017 Johnny wasn't.
The ending was plain odd - it felt downbeat and a bit sad. They should have dispensed with that and ended it with I've Had The Time Of My Life scene (as in the original film).
