Nobody puts Baby in the corner (a review and comparison between 1987's Dirty Dancing and 2017's one)

When you look up the expression "nobody puts Baby in the corner" on Urban Dictionary, this is what you get:

 Made famous in Dirty Dancing when Johnny gets Baby for the final dance. She's sitting in the corner with her parents, who were mad at her.
Now used when proper attention is not given to a situation but the situation turns out OK anyway. 

But, when you watch the 2017's remake of this iconic movie, the situation is everything but OK.

Now, let me start by saying I had never watched the original until yesterday that I decided it was time. Also, a friend of mine had recently watched the remake and told me it was awful, so of course I had to watch it, you know, I got this thing for awful stuff and specially for awful remakes. So yeah, I watch my movie and I really like it. It's a simple story, a little Romeo-and-Juliet-ish, girls meets boy, different world, parents against it, blah blah blah, we know the drill. 

I wanna say I liked the acting, I liked Swayze (Johnny), I liked Jennifer (Baby). I really enjoyed the casting in general. I specially liked Jane Brucker, who plays Lisa, Baby's sister, but I think it's just because the character amused me, I found her funny and entertaining to watch. But anyway, let's address what really matters that is our main characters: Johnny is compelling, he really gives that sexy, troubled man vibe, his gaze and movements are so, so sensual, and this right here is crucial, but we'll get to it later. Baby on the other hand, is this carefree, daddy's girl, but she's not a brat, she's confident, strong and nice, her whole self is inviting, you wanna be her friend and I think that's something very important for this character.

But of course, the movie is called Dirty Dancing, so in the end, it's not really about their acting, but their dancing skills. First of all, it was choreographed by god of dancing himself, Kenny Ortega, so what could go wrong? Yeah, you got it, basically nothing. The dances are flawless. They are smooth, the dancers make them look easy and effortless, they flow like water on the dance floor and it's beautiful. But, there's one thing that makes every dance number perfect: they are sensual, they are sensual AF. They are not sexual, they are vulgar and, very important, they are not just moves performed in an automatic manner. The performers felt their dance moves, the owned them and took them to the next level. You can't even call them sexy, because it would be an understatement. Dance numbers in Dirty Dancing are sensual. So when I said that the sensual vibe Johnny gave was crucial, I meant it, and then, Baby's easygoing and sweet personality, mixed with it, just makes it a thousand times better.

So yeah, I think it is a great movie and, you know, it's only like 100 minutes long, so if you have nothing going on, on a Sunday afternoon and you haven't watched it, then go. It's a fun and simple romantic comedy with some sensual dancing, what else could you ask for?!

And that was then, in 1987, when remembering the summer of '63 was only a few years away, but a couple decades later, in 2011, Kenny Ortega wanted to bring it back and Lionsgate loved the idea! But for some reason, Kenny abandoned that ship and I'm so, so, so sorry that everyone else stayed and made the world watch a sinking way worse than the Titanic (btw, if you're someone from Hollywood remaking movies and you're thinking about doing Titanic, pls don't, im dead serious, just dont).

The first thing I wanna get out of the way is the musical thing. In the 2017 remake, they tried to make it an actual musical with actual people singing and that's not the worst part. The worst part is, actually, that tried is a key word here, I mean, you could'have had them singing and dancing or you could've just had them dancing, but your capability of decision-making is so extremely poor, that you chose to do neither, but instead, something in between that makes the whole movie feel awkward AF. Like, "are they gonna sing?", "Are they not?", "What is the purpose of this?", "Why?", these are just some of the questions you'll be asking yourself throughout it all.

Now, casting decisions.... what were these people thinking, oh my God. I'll just start with the good. Bruce Greenwood as Dr. Houseman and Debra Messing as Marjorie Houseman were okay, these characters get a little more screen time since this remake is 130 minutes long, so we get to watch their dynamics and get to hear them sing, which were really 2 of the three times I was okay with singing throughout the whole thing. The third time I was okay with the singing was with the song Lisa sings in the show at the end of the movie, but I wasn't okay with Lisa at any other point, as I told you before, I really liked the character in the original, but in this one it's just another girl, there's nothing remarkable about her, she even sings nicely, and I liked her casting, I love Sarah Hyland, but I just think they lost the essence to that character. The other thing I liked was the guy that played Neil, although the character wasn't as obnoxious as in the original and also didn't have as much screen time, I specially liked the fact that I felt like it was the exact same guy.

Since we got the good out of the way, let's talk about the bad, beginning with Nicole Scherzinger as Penny, and don't get me wrong, I liked her Penny, I think her performance was beautiful, she dances flawlessly and sings perfectly and jut that made the singing scenes a little more bearable, but there is a HUGE age gap showing everywhere. She's supposed to get pregnant with Robbie's (played by Shane Harper) baby, but she seriously looks like his mom. There's a scene when she's dancing with Baby and she looks like Baby's mom. Gosh, she even looks older than Johnny. And this is me, a person who loves Nicole and thinks she's beautiful and perfect, but let's get real, people! WTF! And speaking of WTF, what is up with Colt Prattes as Johnny? I mean, he's a gorgeous man, yes, and he's a great dancer, yes, but he's not exactly an actor, is he? Or at least, this was definitely not the part for him. Yes, he did have the sexy bad boy vibe, but that's it. There's no passion, there's no feeling, there's no sensuality, so the film actually loses a lot there.

And, of course, I wanna talk about Abigail Breslin, and I'll do it separately because right here I'm going to talk about costumes and make-up, too. I like Abigail Breslin, I think she's a good actress and I also think she's very pretty. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, let me tell you, she's really a lot of what's wrong with this movie. In a 130 minutes long movie she's only able to get to me once. Cheesy acting, no connection with Johnny at all, she doesn't have that easygoing, confident vibe that seems to be a trademark of the character and, then, on top of everything, she looks plain ugly. Costume and make-up people hated her, I'm sure. She's always wearing almost the exact same clothes, she has terrible hair, she has never been really thin, but she looks fat and graceless, even her teeth look awful, and overall, she looks 12 instead of 18. And, you know, Abigail is an actress, she's not a dancer apparently, and she did her job, she learned her choreos, but she did not perform them as good as they should've been. But at the end of the day, this is not her fault, it's the people that did the casting's. 

Dance numbers are made, singing numbers are delivered, more dramatic situations are created. Like a lot of things in the world, this could've been a good a idea, that could've been well done, but it wasn't. Dirty Dancing, the remake, first aired on May 2017, on ABC and received mostly bad critics, and there's a good reason for that.

This one I would not recommend watching, but if you wanna see it for yourself, good luck.

Dirty Dancing (1987): 4/5
Dirty Dancing (2017): 1/5