Have you seen Point Break? Not the recent remake, but the original from the early 90’s, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. It was cheesy and campy, but still an enjoyable ride. Now, picture this: Take the same basic script, but remove all of the humor, clever writing, rich characters, and memorable moments. Do you have that in your head? Then, take that picture and make it even more dull, humorless, and gray and you’ll have 2015’s Point Break.

The new Point Break stars Luke Bracey and Edgar Ramirez. Bracey plays Johnny Utah, an ex-extreme sports athlete who has become an FBI agent. After a string of crimes– supposedly performed by extreme sports athletes–  rocks the world, Utah infiltrates the group, led by bad-guy Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez), in order to stop the dangerous crimes.

It’s always good to start optimistic, so I will. On the positive side, the stunts in the film are all fantastic. The film tackles many extreme sports (base jumping, skydiving, surfing, snowboarding) and does them all very impressively. All are performed by real people, and in a world where CGI seems to dictate action movies, this is a welcome addition. My favorite stunt sequence is the rock climbing scene– every moment is filled with tension. It’s beautifully shot, well-acted, and has to be the best scene in the movie.

Another positive of the movie is that it humanizes the villains well. Anyone who’s seen the original Point Break knows that while the villains were sympathetic, they were still the villains. In this movie, somehow the villains don’t seem like villains at all, even when they break the law. This may have to do with Edgar Ramirez’s performance as Bodhi. He’s no Patrick Swayze, but he still gives it his all. In the end, the villains are often the ones the audience is cheering for, and for good reason.

A final positive is that the movie’s ending had me glued to the screen. I won’t spoil anything, but after such a movie as this, it must be worth something to keep me invested enough to stare at the screen in awe. The ending is still sticking with me after weeks, so that’s certainly saying something.

Having said all that, everything else about the movie is disappointing– not necessarily bad, just… remarkably average. The acting (except for Ramirez) is bland and unoriginal. The writing is poor, with the apparent goal having been to score as many dialogue cliches as possible in a single film. The love interest feels forced and uninteresting, the film is overly dramatic, and the characters are unrelatable, with no hope of pulling at our heartstrings even slightly.

The film can be dreadfully boring at some parts. Sandwiched between the exciting stunt scenes is boring character development and boring FBI shenanigans, both of which are boring, boring, boring. If this was an effects showcase that just contained a bunch of extreme stunts, it would be much better.

Another thing that bothered me was the motivation of the villains. In the 1991 original, Swayze’s crew was robbing banks because they wanted to stick it to the system, and because they were surfers who needed money to continue doing what they loved. But for the remake, the screenwriters felt the need to give the villains a spiritual motivation, committing crimes to “save the earth” or as part of some sort of spiritual cycle to reach nirvana. All I have to say to that is… why? Why is this necessary? Why try to overcomplicate things? It’s is a prime example of over-complication that ruins characters.

Overall, despite some fantastic stunts and some compelling villains, Point Break suffers from bland acting, poor writing, boring moments, and too much drama. Point Break is a movie that wants to be remembered, but truthfully, you’ll forget it as soon as you leave the theatre. I’ll give it 3 out of 10 extreme stunts because of a few positives, but as a whole, I can only really recommend this to fans of extreme sports. My suggestion? Go watch the original… or better yet, see Star Wars: The Force Awakens one more time.