And so it begins. Ready or not, Point Break, the remake of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 camp action classic, is on the way, and it appears the promotional push has begun. Just the other day we got our first taste of the action in the inaugural trailer, and now Warner Bros. is back with a new featurette that delves into the stunts, extreme sports, and general daredevilry we’ll see in the finished film.
The first thing you see in this video is a collection of silhouettes lining the windswept ridge of jagged mountain as a voice asks, "Is this radical enough for you?" And what follows certainly attempts to push the boundaries of what qualifies as extreme when it comes to this type of cinematic action.
As you can see in this footage, they really went all out. Like the original Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze-starring version, the plot centers around a group of bank robbers who are also surfers. Point Break 2015 expands that a great deal, as the heists are bigger—they’re not just a bunch of dudes looking to finance their endless summer, the new outlaws are international criminals pulling off major heists. They also do more than just surf and skydive. Both of those figure into the film, but they also worked in snowboarding, rock climbing, base jumping, and more.
It’s cool that they, at least from what you can see in this video, went almost exclusively practical for all of these stunts. To further the authenticity, they brought in experts in their respective fields, like Laird Hamilton, perhaps the most accomplished big wave surfer in the world. He pioneered the trend of having jet skis pull you out farther so you can get access to the really big waves. They also travel the world, wing suiting in Switzerland, rock climbing at Angel Falls in Venezuela, and more.
And apparently the extreme sports play an even larger role in the plot this time out, and new Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey) isn’t just some random undercover FBI agent assigned to the task. In this iteration he’s already a practitioner of the extreme arts, and has some kind of death wish to boot. I still can’t shake the feeling that this is going to wind up feeling more like a remake of xXx than of Point Break, but it’s still early in the going.
Point Break rides a wave into theaters this Christmas. Maybe you can fit in a screening between repeat viewings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens the week before.
