Dirty Dancing (2017)

Breslin and Prattes are more or less adequate in the pivotal lead roles, but certainly no match for the smoldering chemistry that Swayze and Grey displayed both on and off the dance floor.

Between the bad lip-syncing, the inexplicable addition of musical numbers, and the pale imitation of classic moments from the original film, it just doesn’t work.

ABC's earnest, anodyne remake has managed to surgically extract the magic--leaving the story and signature lines intact while suctioning out all the subtlety, charm and lead chemistry that defined the iconic 1987 original. [26 May 2017, p.55]

This TV movie is bloated with additional storylines and loses the joy of the original. ... Be prepared to fast-forward--a lot.

Overall, the new version of Dirty Dancing never finds its footing.

A real musical deploys its songs organically; here they tend to interrupt rather than enhance. ... [A] sterile imitation.

In summary, the new Dirty Dancing is disappointing and a bit all over the place. But its biggest sin is that it’s bloated and boring.

To say they (Abigail Breslin and Colt Prattes) have no onscreen chemistry is to minimize the problem: You actively want to get Baby away from him.

This contemporary version, stuffed with subplots and extended dance sequences and terrible writing (“We’re all gonna be worm food, anyways,” Baby tells Johnny in one impressively lust-squashing shrug of a line) can’t decide whether it wants to emulate the original Dirty Dancing or transform it into Chekhov. Either way, it’s less the time of your life and more three hours you’ll never get back.

It is neither good nor deliciously bad. It is a banal three-hour timesuck that manages to feel both rushed and drawn-out.

I wish to praise Abigail Breslin's lead performance in the ABC remake of Dirty Dancing that nobody asked for and nobody is likely to truly enjoy.

This isn't so much dirty as drippy. [15-28 May 2017, p.17]

A sappy, passionless, schlocky remake of the original, without even the iota of imagination necessary to expand upon the 1987 film. Nearly every element of the film that caught worldwide audiences’ imaginations has been sanded down into an advertisement-ready imagining of the swinging ‘60s.

Its three-hour remake is poorly cast, badly choreographed and auto-tuned to an inch of its life, with a “La La Land”-inspired plot twist that is sure to make no one happy.