Point Break

Imagine the intense stunts from energy drink commercial or Youtube extreme sport montage while music from Mad Max blares on background. This is where the second coming of Point Break truly excels. When it hits just the right velocity, it's bloody breathtaking. Unfortunately, the narrative is not only poor, it nearly sabotages the movie like a broken parachute.

Story revolves around Utah (Luke Bracey), an FBI trainee as he investigates a series of heists and their connection to a group of athletes led by Bodhi (Édgar Ramírez). As one might expect, it follows the same trail that Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze has placed. The new leads do what they can, although it's better to watch this without comparing, because it certainly doesn't have the same caliber of star or chemistry.

The plot then dives head first into uncharted territory. It's littered with so much "save the planet" preachy acts as the writing struggles to place FBI agent in the hippie nirvana angle. The motivation is just a mess of random vague one-liners, even the on-screen characters are perplexed by it. There's a romance subplot, but this is mainly to show the attractive Teresa Palmer as eye candy for several short scenes.

The movie is actually better when they just show the crazy sequences instead of forcing its lackluster story. It has plethora of impressive feats, from high heaven wingsuit flying, the climb on hazardous urban streets and natural cliffs, to the surfing of gigantic waves. This is the level of stunt choreography xXx and Fast and Furious wish they had.

When camera pans into the right angle and lighting, as the sounds is muffled by throbbing tune of the fast music, Point Break reaches the zenith. It's miles beyond what typical action flick could offer, but sadly it's repeatedly interrupted by the shoddy story, which feels like an excuse to fly across the globe to do random cool tricks.

If viewed only on the grand mix of cinematography and choreography, Point Break is exquisite, this would have been a great documentary of extreme sport. However, as action movie, the story is so pretentious, it simply serves as speed bump to hamper the thrill.

In 1991 Katheryn Bigelow brought us the idealistic pairing of Keanu Reeves (Utah) and Patrick Swayze (Bodhi), along with Gary Busey (Papas), Lori Petty (Tyler). The audience went on an absolute ride with these stars. The characters were well developed and story was plausible.

Fast forward to 2015 and Ericson Core brings us extreme sports involved with an FBI agent which subtly brings the audience an extreme dud. Extreme snowboarding, motor cross, surfing, wind gliding, rock climbing is all here. The story differs from the bank robbing of the original film as extreme athletes look to complete the Ozaki 8, extreme death defying events that harvest the earth, wind, rain, fire, all while liquidating companies of money, gold, diamonds.

The acting was extremely poor, characters did not develop as in the original, they fell flat and stale throughout. The action was ok at best.

Either you make a sequel or a remake it is inevitable to compare it with the original. All too often a remake has nothing to do with the original except maybe the names of the characters involved.

Pretty much this is the case of Point Break (2015).

The "original" Point Break was a multilayer action movie. The romantic element was stronger, its purpose more clear, the fine line a deep undercover agent could cross and lose himself more evident and, because that matters the most in this cases, more fun.

In the "contemporary" version you are going to see some wild landscapes, including Angel Falls in Venezuela, Caineville in Utah and the Swiss Alps missing in the original. Yet the greenish over-sharped image, chosen by Ericson Core who serves both as the director and as cinematographer, dilutes their majestic natural appearance and makes them look artificial.

The movie also talks, in the beginning, about nirvana and spiritual enlightenment but in the end fails to emit such feelings towards the viewers.

So is it bad? Well no I wouldn't say that. it us a totally different beast. More raw, even more dramatic but with far less wit and charisma.

The cast isn't stellar. I wouldn't compare Ray Winstone with the ...shadow of the tongue-in-chic Pappas (Gary Busey) of the first installment. Neither Teresa Palmer is the smart-mouthed Lori Petty. All the characters are pretty much wooden and one dimensional.

Overall: I would say to check it out for the impressive stunts and landscapes, but the sharp and green cinematography ruined that for me. No real substance in the fun department or the performances either.

I already didn't have a high opinion of the movie before even starting watching it and that's because I don't really like remakes unless they are much better. But after watching it I was surprised it wasn't actually a complete copy of the 1991 Point Break. The story is different in many points but unfortunately it isn't better. The good thing about the movie are the stunts and the nature shots. But it was just not enough to make it a good movie. It's an average movie with special effects that could have been much better when you see the budget they had. The acting was just okay without being great. It's just the story that was lousy written. And that's the most important thing for any movie. If you don't have a good script you don't get a good movie. That's a fact.

It's pretty stupid.

Basically it's a bunch of pretty awesome extreme sports stunts with some poorly acted scenes that try to move along a super weak story.

The ADR is especially bad too.