The 'Dirty Dancing' Reboot Is Even Worse Than You Think
After MUCH promotion, the Dirty Dancing reboot that no one asked for debuted on ABC Wednesday night. And boy, was it awful.
Like, so, so awful. I knew it was going to be bad. I was all ready to giddily hate-watch it with some wine. But even I was not prepared for this. It’s like someone on Cupcake Wars entrusted their partner to make their best cupcake for the finale, only to watch her burn them all.
Like, you had a great recipe. Everyone loves it. And THAT’S the result you served? How dare you.
Now, let’s go through this atrocity together.
Sarah Hyland is cute AF as Lisa Houseman, and I have a feeling she’s going to be a saving grace of this sinking ship. She kicks it off with a killer one-liner when Baby (Abigail Breslin) points out that the piano player is cute. “So are puppies, but I’m not gonna date one.”
Meanwhile, Baby gets quickly thrust onto dorky Neil (Trevor Einhorn), the resort owner’s son. He’s smarmy as hell – “A woman can be anything she wants to be. I truly believe that.” Oh do you, Neil?! What a gift to women you are. – But he’s not quite as aggressive as in the film.
And then Johnny Castle (Colt Prattes)… I’m sorry, but he and Penny’s (Nicole Scherzinger) introduction is just so underwhelming. Like, he’s a dancer in real life, right? I’m not impressed. And I know he had some big shoes to fill, but he looks more like Billy Loomis to me than Patrick Swayze. It feels more Scream than sexy summer resort.
Also, I think this is his first acting gig… which feels kind of like a slap in the face to the late Patrick Swayze. This is one of his most beloved and iconic roles. Could they not even try to cast a good successor?
Oh, and can we talk about the fact that they BUTCHERED MY FAVORITE LINE?! “I carried a watermelon” is iconic. It’s symbolic of that awkward moment when you say the totally wrong thing in front of your crush, and want to curl into a ball and roll away.
Here’s how that scene actually played out:
Baby: “I carried his watermelon.”
Johnny: “Do me a favor, baby. Carry your own watermelon next time.” *Johnny pulls her in for some grinding* What? Why would he angrily yell at her and then dance with her? Why change that beloved line only for it to make less sense?
The entire “dirty dancing” club scene is more like a weird musical number than the actual sexy revelation it is in the movie. It’s all just such a let down. This did not need to be a musical.
Robbie (Shane Harper) is such a dick in the movie, but boy, did they make him worse here. Not only does he impregnate Penny (which is apparently a secret to everyone?), but he taunts her in the cafeteria about it, suggesting she’s cheap. There’s a special place in hell for this guy.
Speaking of Penny, she immediately tells Baby she’s pregnant. It’s not a secret at all. And she seems to warm right up to Baby like she’s been looking for a rich little bestie her whole life. Um, okay?
Guys, the musical numbers in this movie are too much. Look, I love Katey Sagal as much as the next girl. 8 Simple Rules was my jam. But we did not need that long ass, oddly sexual rendition of “Fever” with Johnny and Vivian Pressman – who is divorced in this movie, by the way.
So Robbie and Lisa’s courtship is hella short here. He tells her he loves her, suggests he wants to marry her, and then basically tries to rape her, right on the beach… then blames it all on her for pursuing him. Honestly, this friggin’ guy.
It’s almost too much to take, but then Baby goes and awkwardly tries to save Penny with the most awkward proposal ever. Instead of saying her dad gave her the $250 check for the abortion like in the movie, she comes up with this lame excuse about wanting to fortify her brain with dance.
I guess they didn’t want to tarnish Penny and Baby’s blossoming BFF-ship with the former’s scorn, so instead, Baby says she wants to pay Johnny $250 for dancing lessons for the end of year talent show, because “it’s good for the brain to learn new things.”
But then later when Penny realizes she’ll need to get the surgery on her day off, Baby volunteers to step in for her… so they’re still doing the Sheldrake plot line anyway. Not sure why we needed that awkward “brain food” speech then. I don’t think anyone thought any of this script through.
I feel like I have to preface this with my love for Abigail Breslin, because baby girl, what were you doing? Oh my god, watching her dance is painful. It is so goddamn awkward it physically hurts me. And why is she so covered up? No one else is. Johnny is shirtless. Even the older women are wearing low-cut tops. Are we afraid of a little cleavage, ABC?
They shove her into this short-sleeved, very *okay* green dress for the Sheldrake performance instead of a sexy costume, and then make Johnny have this like, really unconvincing five-minute jaw drop over it, as if that would make us believe that they weren’t dressing her like she’s Amish just because she has curves.
And let’s be real – these two have ZERO chemistry. Like, Penny and Baby dancing to that weird song about chicken and the barn was more exciting than any of the supposedly romantic scenes between Baby and Johnny. I can’t even pin down where the “love” began.
When Johnny freaks out over Baby’s dad (Bruce Greenwood) not thinking he’s good enough for her, I’m like, wait. Do you even like her? When was that established? As far as I know, you’re literally just her dance teacher… and you don’t even seem too happy about that.
They also took out Baby’s speech, which, all the credit in the world to Jennifer Grey, because that is one of the best moments in the film. They went from “Me? I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all, I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you” – CHILLS – to Baby pounding on Johnny’s door and calling him “too cool for school.”
There’s also an entire subplot about the parents divorcing because they haven’t had sex in a year, which – why? Like, did ABC HAVE to fill three hours, and so they just threw a bunch of random stuff at the wall and hoped it stuck? Because we did not need this story line and we did not need all of these extra songs.
Though I will say, literally the only song I liked was Sarah Hyland and Marco (J. Quinton Johnson) playing Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” I knew Sarah was going to save us all.
While in bed with Baby, Johnny goes off on a tangent about Vivian and how it feels good to be wanted by “classy women with silk underwear” and I don’t even know what to say other than why?
The writers for this movie are so impossibly cheesy they give “The Bachelorette” a run for its money. When asked by her sister how she fell for Johnny, Baby looks wistfully off into the skyline and says dreamily, “He taught me to dance.” End of story. I kid you not. I’m sorry to have ruined your day with this information.
Then, Johnny gets arrested? Because Vivian sneaks into his room and plants a Rolex because she’s so jealous that he’s with Baby… and that is what forces Baby to come clean about being with him. They didn’t even need to do the Sheldrake plot line at all. They didn’t use it to further any other story lines at this point.
It also gets creepy AF because Baby’s dad is LIVID about the situation, but he tells her that he can’t even look at Johnny because he took the “most precious thing in the world” away from him. At which point, a crying Baby points out that she’s still standing right there. AKA, the most precious thing in the world to him was his youngest daughter’s virginity? What the f**k?
No wonder he’s not shtupping his hot wife (Debra Messing) if the most precious thing to him is his freaking daughter’s virginity. Jesus.
Finally this terrible, horrible nightmare is coming to a close. Johnny rushes back for no apparent reason, since they never did the plot line about changing his final dance number since Neil was actually a really nice guy for some reason.
But he pulls Baby out of the corner anyway. And brings her on stage to tell her… “I had the time of my life.” Yes, he literally tells her he had the time of his life… AND THEN SINGS IT, TOO. They both sing the song together while dancing. And the lift is so unbelievably awful, and also, maybe not even Abigail?
But it only continues to get worse, because even the dad sings “I had the time of my life” to his wife. It’s so painful, you guys. Then it cuts back to 1975, where a (once again) crying Baby is watching a Broadway production of, you guessed it, Dirty Dancing, which was choreographed by none other than Johnny Castle.
They awkwardly chat about dancing until Baby’s daughter runs up, and then her husband kisses her and makes Johnny uncomfortable. Apparently she’s still taking salsa lessons. Johnny tells her to keep dancing, which is painful, and she tells the Broadway choreographer the same.
Oh, and apparently his show is based off of the book Baby wrote about the same experience. So meta, guys. Lifetime would have done a better job with this story. I just feel so betrayed and also mad at myself for staying up late to watch this garbage.
… And for likely keeping myself up late tonight watching the original because I need to wash this bad taste out of my mouth.
This was originally published on Entity Mag.
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