ReviewColumn’s rating :

Over the years we’ve seen all sorts of Disney style inspirational movies: Drumline, Remember the Titans, The Great Debaters, etc. All of them focus around one particular subject (for example drums, football and debates respectively) and all have this climatic performance/scene where you’re supposed to get goosebumps while watching the characters shine. Plots like that certainly sound good on paper, but it all comes down to whether these movies can set themselves apart from others in some ways, unfortunately Step Up completely fails to do so.

Unlike the other films, Step Up’s main premise is dancing. It starts off with Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum), an average teenager growing up in a slum neighbourhood and hangs out among Black boys, getting into trouble when he and his friends break into the Maryland school of Arts and wreck havoc for the fun of it. Unfortunately he fails to escape with his friends and ultimately has to do a few hundred hours of CWO in the school itself as a janitor. It’s during this period of time that he crosses paths with Nora Clark (Jenna Dewan), a dance student of the school itself. When her dance partner sprains his ankle and is thus unable to continue rehearsing with her, Nora eventually accepts Tyler as her dance partner after auditioning a few other students who couldn’t make the cut and realising that he was a pretty good dancer (Tyler was a break dancer on the streets). Initially, both of them are pretty hostile towards one another, both unwilling to completely accept each other’s style of dancing (Nora teaches ballet while Tyler is a breakdancer). However, as they spend more time with one another, they begin to grow closer and Tyler helps Nora with her senior showcase performance. It’s at this point in these sort of movies that a series of unfortunate events begin to unfold, and it’s no different here. A lot of things go awry, causing Tyler to quit helping Nora and even the death of one of his friends. However, it’s as if in the last 10 to 20 minutes or so the movie suddenly realises it’s supposed to end on a happy note and all of a sudden Tyler rushes back to the theatre at the eleventh hour and helps Nora with her dance. And they all live happily ever after.

That’s precisely the main problem with this film: the plot. It’s just boring. We’ve seen these sort of plots a ton of times in other movies, and Step Up does nothing whatsoever to change or even tweak it at all. In fact, in the last 30 minutes or so everything suddenly randomly happens without much explanation for those things happening in the first place. You’re just left wondering why this particular thing is occuring on screen when suddenly the climax just pops in from nowhere and you start watching Nora’s senior showcase performance. Then after that the movie just ends with a few closing scenes. It almost seems like little effort was put into the later stages in the movie (ie the part where everything is supposed to go bad and then get better again before everyone lives happily ever after).

Unfortunately, the mediocre plot is hardly the only problem. Everything in the film just feels so cliche, from the characters, to the settings themselves. It’s one of the things that makes this such a boring and uninteresting film because it’s just so stereotypical and unimaginative. In my opinion that’s a real waste of the talent present. While both leads aren’t exactly popular actors and actresses, they still do a pretty good job throughout the film, though there’s room for improvement. However, the parts where the film really shine are during the dance sequences, both leads do a great job of flaunting their talents on the dance floor. It is unfortunate that throughout the entire film there’s only one full length dance performance since the film could have been so much better just by introducing more dancing sequences since it’s where the leads are best able to shine.

All in all, while this film has a pretty mediocre storyline and lousy plot mechanics were used to get the story to move along, it’s far from the lousiest film I’ve watched. I’d still recommend it for casual viewing, especially for people who love dancing, but don’t expect much out of it. Hopefully, it’s sequel, Step Up 2: The Streets, which was recently released (though I haven’t watched it yet), will be a better film.

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