Monday, March 9, 2015

The Quick and Dirties: Step Up All In, Street Dance, Honey 2, etc.


Boys and girls, I know many of you spent yesterday in your Sunday best. Now it's Monday. Time to get back to work. Once again, it's time to get dirty. Quick and dirty, that is.

In my house, dance movies are all the rage. At least, they are with my wife and daughters. Therefore, I bump into a bunch of them by accident. Instead of spending a lot more time choreographing this post, I'm just tightening up my shoelaces and hitting the floor...

Step Up All In
(2014)
The fifth installment in the Step Up franchise finally does what all of the sequels should have done. It dispenses with all, or at least most, notions of story-telling. What little there is concerns our heroes trying to win a bunch of money in a national dance competition held in Las Vegas. There are also some hurt feelings between the lead dude and his old crew from the last movie. Of course, we have the prerequisite love story involving the aforementioned lead dude and the lead chick from Step Up 2 the Streets. By the way, that's still a really dumb title. Anyhoo, the gang's all here as everyone who was ever deemed one of the good guys in one of these movies shows up here. Well, everyone except Magic Mike, himself. The story is formulaic, at best, the acting is barely tolerable, and I couldn't be bothered to care about any of these people even if they suddenly burst into flames. But dammit, watching these dance scenes is just fun. They're full of energy and inventive. Everything around them is crap, but I wasn't exactly expecting To Kill a Mockingbird.


StreetDance
(2010)
Things aren't looking too good for a London street dance crew when their fearless leader suddenly ditches them. This includes giving the Heisman to his girlfriend and leaving her in charge. In-fighting, break-ups, make-ups, new love interest, villainous dance crew to compete with at the big competition, betrayal, yada-yada. I had my doubts for about thirty seconds, but the presence of a prestigious dance school which plays a huge role in things sealed the deal. This an unabashed Step Up rip-off. Yup, right down to the multi-ethnic team of underdogs and closely associating dancing with being a thug. Sigh. All told, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon. After all, like the movies it obviously aspires to be, the dancing carries it. Besides that, it actually has a good performance from one of its actors. Charlotte Rampling shines in her role as one of the big wigs at the stuffy dance school. Sadly, she never gets to bust a move and we're only focused on those who do.


Honey 2
(2011)
Way back when, three years before the first Step Up came out, there was a little dance movie by the name of Honey, starring a very young Jessica Alba. Yup, her character's name was Honey. Sweet. She's not in this movie. So why the hell is this called Honey 2? Well, to capitalize on a name because our main character moves in with Honey's mom after getting out of juvie. Another dancing thug. Sensing the pattern, here? Anyhoo, our new girl puts together a crew in hopes of winning goo-gobs of money at the big competition. Did I say something about patterns? Hmmm. About halfway through this one, my son wanders out of his room into the living room, looks at the screen and says "Why are all these dance movies exactly the same." I laughed, the ladies in the house acted as if he committed blasphemy of the highest order. The dance-by-numbers plot hoofed along with at least one lead foot because it felt like the damn thing would never end. Yes, the dancing is good, but a step down from the previous two movies in this post. Step down, get it? Never mind. I didn't completely mind watching it because our protagonist is mucho caliente. At least, there's that.


Dance Flick
(2009)
The people who brought you Scary Movie, Date Movie, etc. make fun of dance movies, most notably Save the Last Dance. It's a movie in which every instant is supposed to be a joke. There is never a serious moment. Therefore, the filmmakers simply throw everything at the screen and some of it sticks. When it does, it causes you to laugh out loud. Of course, it works better the more familiar you are with the source material. Like everything else in this line of so-called spoofs, it almost completely dispenses with the notion of creativity. Instead of using the plethora of already laughable dance movies for inspiration it just reenacts one scene after another from some other dance flick (bad pun intended), adds something gross or otherwise outlandish and hopes its funny. All spoofs work better when you're familiar with the source material. The better ones are self-sufficient narratives that create a world of their own. For instance, Austin Powers is based on James Bond and other movie super-agents that came before him but he is at once a composite of them and a unique individual. The same goes for the killer or Sydney in Scream, or anyone in Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, or even the Wayans family's own brilliant I'm Gonna Git You Sucka Here, every character is simply whoever they were based on but in a dumber movie. So while you get a few laughs, it is at times regrettable and mostly forgettable. Actually, that's not fair. There is one thing I'll never forget: Mz. Cameltoe beat-boxing. Yup. Just like that.


10 comments:

  1. There's a Honey 2? LOL. I remember seeing that movie in theaters and buying the soundtrack but I remember absolutely nothing from it.

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    1. Yeah, I don't think this one ever made it to theaters.

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  2. I LOVE dance movies. I have even watched Honey (which was TERRIBLE) and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (which was EVEN WORSE). The only ones I've ever actually enjoyed are the Step Up films, which also happen to be among the few films in the years since Avatar to actually use 3D in interesting ways (the art gallery scene in Revolution still blows my mind). Step Up All In was a blast, primarily because as you said they largely dispensed with any of this silly "plot" thing. I laughed when I saw there was a sequel to Honey, and laughed even harder when I saw Jessica Alba came nowhere near it and it doesn't even feature any prominent character from the first one. Why even bother? I also haven't bothered with StreetDance or its sequel because it is so obviously a Step Up ripoff, but I never realized Charlotte Rampling was in the Rachel Griffiths part. I may have to watch it now.

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    1. I've not seen any dance movie in 3D. The concept is totally lost on me. Glad to hear they were well done. As bad as they are, the Step Up movies are fun. And yes, Rampling is good in SD. She brings dignity to the proceedings.

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    2. ...which begs the question, do we really WANT dignity in these proceedings?

      The 3D in the Step Up films was totally worth the price of admission. They really use it to add something to the dance sequences, to the point where it feels like they were designed and choreographed with 3D in mind.

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    3. That's interesting to learn. I assumed I wasn't missing anything except occasionally feeling like I was about to be kicked in the face. Too bad I don't have a 3D TV. And yeah, Rampling's dignity might be a tad misplaced, but she makes it work.

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  3. Those spoof movies are really getting old, aren't they? I mean, they are trying so hard to outdo each other that they are just being more and more 'over the top' and ridiculous.

    I find those Step Up movies to be such a guilty pleasure.

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    1. I tired of them after the first Scary Movie. Just couldn't avoid this one, unfortunately. As far as the Step Up flicks go, I've given up hating them. They've beaten me into submission. So yeah, guilty pleasures they are.

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  4. I can't get into dance movies. They really don't offer very much. Plus, I never got into the Step Up film. Honey was terrible. Why the need for a sequel? At least You Got Served had something to offer with its horrific acting which made it enjoyable to watch.

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    1. You get no argument from me. Most of them are just bad. When I watch them nowadays I mostly do other stuff and only half pay attention until the next dance scene comes along. I've given up really laying into the SU flicks because they're critic-proof. Now, I just let them wash over me and enjoy them as guilty pleasures. I couldn't beat them so I joined them.

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