Footloose: Critic Reviews

Like the rest of today's video-happy teen-age entertainments, Footloose doesn't expect to be watched closely or taken seriously. It wants to fill the screen with catchy music and pretty kids, and this it certainly accomplishes.

Footloose is a seriously confused movie that tries to do three things, and does all of them badly.

Herbert Ross directed this odd but reasonably effective blend of rock music and didactic melodrama.

Essential to the result is young Kevin Bacon, superb in the lead part.

A dated rebellion tale.

Footloose wasn't exactly a critical fave, but it didn't try to be hip and it had a relatively light touch, with recognizable human beings on the screen.

The movie features some good dancing -- not nearly enough, however -- and a fine, understated performance by Lithgow in a role that might easily lend itself to caricature.

A cynical and manipulative exercise with little feel for the teen culture it purports to celebrate.

An 80s milestone, for better or for worse... and a key link to any game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

A lively and entertaining youth drama about the coming of change in a repressive small town.

OK teen flick that time has treated kindly.

Only the most cynical would never admit to tapping their toes to Loggins' title track.

I know it's a classic, but I wanted more dancing. Great hair though.

One could take it as a quaint little throwback, if the movie weren't so tedious.

The kids fight for their right to party in this hokey song-and-dance story.

A '50s B-movie very awkwardly translated to the '80s.