Review of Endless Love (2014) by Julie J — 20 Feb 2014

"It was endless torture. Why would anyone want to remake a bad Brooke Shields movie from 1981?".

Movie Review: Endless Love.

Date Viewed: February 19 2014.

Directed By Shana Feste (Country Strong).

Screenplay By Shana Feste and Joshua Safran, Based on the novel by Scott Spencer.

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Gabriella Wilde, Bruce Greenwood, Joely Richardson, Dayo Okeniyi,.

Robert Patrick, Rhys Wakefield and Emma Rigby.

To be personal, I have an endless love for Legos, "House of Cards" and movies. I also have an endless hate on movie executives who continue to do rehashes on Hollywood classics. Remaking a classic is one thing but remaking a bad movie from 1981? The 2014 remake of "Endless Love" is definitive evidence that Hollywood is so bankrupt on ideas now they're trying to remake Razzie nominated flicks from the 80's or 90's.

The original "Endless Love" from 1981 by director Franco Zeffirelli was sort of a fresh take on "Romeo & Juliet". A rich young woman Jade (played by Brooke Shields) and a poor man David (played by Martin Hewitt) fell in love with each other and the girl's father wanted to keep them apart. Then, one of David's best friends (played by Tom Cruise, in his movie debut at the time) advises him to burn her house down. As soon as Jade's house burns to the ground, David is forced to stay from Jade and her family. David cannot stop thinking about Jade, so he violates the restraining order and it all leads to tragedy and major consequences.

I don't know what made the 1981 film so famous, Was it the Lionel Richie/Diana Ross song? Tom Cruise's movie debut? Or it's six Razzie nominations. The premise for the new "Endless Love" remains the same but this time it's set in Georgia, it has two young British actors as the leads, it has a PG-13 rating so that the filmmakers could reach out to the audiences of Nicholas Sparks, and the screenwriters wrote a happy ending on this story. Yes folks, They wrote a happy ending in this new version. When I first heard that Universal was going to remake "Endless Love" I thought? "Really, Hollywood is going to remake a bad Brooke Shields movie? Okay, maybe they'll make this new movie better than the original. After all, legendary writer and director Billy Wilder once said, Why is Hollywood remaking the movies we got right? We should only be allowed to remake the ones we got wrong!".

Those words of wisdom were not the case with the 2014 version of "Endless Love", Instead of making it better, director and co-writer Shana Feste (Country Strong) has made the new movie even worse than the original. If Hollywood keeps remaking bad movies then I cannot wait for the remakes of "Howard the Duck", "Ishtar" and "Leonard Part 6". Those three remakes will certainly be better than the remake of "Endless Love" which I thought was endless torture to sit through.

"Endless Love" begins with Jade Butterfield (Gabriella Wilde) as she graduates from high school and hopes to become a cardiologist like her father (Bruce Greenwood). Jade is a wealthy girl who has plans to go to Brown University but she falls for a good-looking guy named David Elliot (Alex Pettyfer). David is nice, decent, smart guy who had a thing for Jade since high school and he wants to be in her life as long as possible but Jade's father wants to keep them apart because the relationship is ruining her daughter's chances at a bright future. Jade's mother (Joely Richardson) however is happy that her daughter has found someone who truly cares about her. Soon, Jade and David make love on the carpet by the fireplace (the most famous scene in the original movie), playing with fireworks at a lake house, and sneak into a carnival.

We soon find out that Jade's father is having an affair and he has looked into David's troubled past which leads to Jade staying away from David and attend Brown University. David tries to move on but he can't stop thinking about her so he tries to find her and I already told you there's a happy ending in this story so what do you think is going to happen. Both Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde used to be models which probably explains why they are Barbie and Ken dolls in this movie and great character actors like Bruce Greenwood, Joely Richardson and Robert Patrick (playing David's mechanic father) are not compelling here. After being Channing Tatum's wingman in "Magic Mike" and a plantation owner in "Lee Daniels' The Butler", Alex Pettyfer thought he could finally be an appealing leading man but sorry Pettyfer, you're just as wooden as you were in "I Am Number Four" and "Beastly". When will Gabriella Wilde stop appearing in remakes? So far, she has appeared in the 2011 remake of "The Three Musketeers" and the 2013 remake of "Carrie", when will she appear in a movie that's fresh and original. If she continues down this path, we could possibly see her in the remakes of "Flashdance" and "Dirty Dancing".

"Endless Love" felt endlessly long, I could not wait for this movie to be over. "Endless Love" is one of the most unnecessary remakes in recent memory. Not only is "Endless Love" unfaithful to the original novel by Scott Spencer, it also has no respect for fans who might've liked Franco Zeffirelli's original 1981 film. The only picture I had an endless love for so far this year was "The LEGO Movie", go see that instead of this poorly acted melodrama. Please come back Nicholas Sparks, all is forgiven.