To be fair, that's a judgement based on thirty seconds of footage - but it's more than enough to know that nothing on the face of Earth is going to come close to topping the original.
It's not just the fact that it doesn't have Patrick Swayze (RIP) or Jennifer Grey, or the great Jerry Orbach (also RIP) or the work of choreographing legend Kenny Ortega, it just doesn't have the same spark as the original. Not only that, the fact this is a musical and not an actual dramatic film also dampens the whole thing.
People forget that Dirty Dancing actually deal with some pretty serious stuff, like the whole abortion thing at the start of the film and the fact that Johnny Castle was basically a gigolo before he met Baby Houseman. At any rate, this TV remake looks flat, unoriginal and completely uninspired.
You're probably going to watch anyway, aren't you? There's no word yet if it's getting a release on this side of the Atlantic, but it'll more than likely make its way onto Netflix in the next month or so. The three-hour event will be screened in the US on May 24th.
Here's the first promo trailer.
Via YouTube
