ALARIS' REVIEWS

12th July 2009
Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)

It's a little bit Fame (1980). It's a little bit Flashdance (1983). It's a little bit of a lot of movies, but not quite enough of all the good bits.

Step Up 2: The Streets is the sequel to Step Up (2006), and like the original movie, it's about a clash of dance cultures and a budding young romance. I haven't seen the original movie, assuming that like the TV series So You Think You Can Dance (2005), the series gets better with time.

In Step Up 2: The Streets, Andie (Briana Evigan) is a street dancing delinquent, sent to the exclusive Maryland School of Arts as her last chance to stay straight before being shipped to the presumably street-dance-unfriendly Texas. Caught between her old dance crew and her new school, Andie struggles to find her place.

The story is predictable and formulaic, but that isn't necessarily a problem for a genre like this. However, the plot isn't nearly as dramatic as it should be, and feels more like telemovie material. The stakes, the relationships, the emotion, all lack the intensity that would make this a far more memorable movie. That said, if you're looking for something easy to coast through, Step Up 2: The Streets isn't unforgivably annoying.

The cast are clearly dancers first, and actors second, but they all do a fair job (unlike in High School Musical, 2006). The quirky secondary characters don't get a lot of screen time, but they help balance against the incredibly obvious and not very compelling love interest.

For anyone who's seen So You Think You Can Dance (2005) from season three onwards, the dance numbers aren't going to blow you away. However, they're still reasonably entertaining, right down to a dance off in the rain.

There are better teen movies (Mean Girls, 2004; Brick, 2004), and there are better dance movies (Strictly Ballroom, 1992; and the beautiful Billy Elliot, 2000). Step Up 2: The Streets falls short because it doesn't have the drama, and it doesn't have much humour, and it also would have been better had the learning process gone both ways for the characters.

However, as a movie trying to make dance accessible to a teenage audience, Step Up 2: The Streets is okay, but far from great.

Verdict: A mildly entertaining, but not too exciting teen movie about street dancing.

If you like Fame (1980), you might like this.

Note: As an aside, I am looking forward to Step Up 3D (2010), choreographed by the very entertaining Adam Shankman (Hairspray , 2007), and starring some of the awesome dancers from So You Think You Can Dance (various seasons). Let's hope they step it up.