Step Down
posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 in Movie Reviews
The dance movie is a strange creature. More dance exhibitions than actual films, they are often forgiven for flimsy plots and generally poor filmmaking. Step Up 2 the Streets isn’t much different. Riddled with clichés and completely devoid of irony, this film delivers some great dance sequences, but not much else. Andie dances with the 410, an underground dance crew. After getting into some trouble, she’s faced with an ultimatum: join the Maryland School of Arts, or move to Texas with her aunt. At school, she gains the attention of Chase, a popular dance major and brother to the school’s uptight and traditional director. Because of the time she spends in school, she gets thrown out of her crew. Andie and Chase then decide to form their own crew, assembling the outcasts of the MSA and training to battle at “the Streets,” an underground dance competition. But faced with the challenge of the 410 and pressures from school, they find that they may have bitten off more than they can chew.
There isn’t really much to this story. This film doesn’t really try to do anything new in terms of plot, pretty much employing every dance movie cliché you can think of. The weirdest thing about this film is that it does everything without a lick of irony, even when it gets patently ridiculous. Kids, let me give you some advice: try not to base big life decisions on winning or losing a dance battle. It’s just not done. This script just takes itself too seriously, as if it had something new or exciting to say.
But really, it’s just a framework for the dancing, an excuse to get to the real purpose of the film. To its credit, of course, the dancing is actually really good. Street dance has always been a treat to watch, and this film features some truly fantastic moves. The filmmaking, however, doesn’t keep up with the skill of the dancers. Some of the camera work does a disservice to the great talent being showcased. And when there aren’t any people dancing on screen, the filmmaking gets even goofier. The camera moves rather aimlessly through frames, drawing attention away from the dialogue.
The cast does all right. Obviously, people won’t really be paying attention to their acting, but their performances are all pretty solid, even as they trudge through some pretty cliché dialogue. Their main talent lies in the dancing, and each of the cast offers some unique physicality that really adds something to the dance scenes. Strangely, the lead actress, Briana Evigan, is probably the weakest dancer among the cast. She regularly gets outshined by cast members with much smaller parts.
Again, people aren’t really expecting much from this film, and if all you’re looking for are great dance sequences, then the film might appeal to you. I would suggest, however, that you just wait for the DVD to come out. That way, you can just select all the dance chapters and skip the sometimes painful stuff in between. Whatever you’re expecting, there’s just no way you can call this a good film.
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