Step Up in 3D
Director: ohn Chu
Cast: Rick Malambri, Sharni Vinson and Adam G Sevani
Releasing in cinemas: 5 August 2010
Rated: PG
Not quite The Red Shoes
A worldwide craze for dancing seems to have taken over from skate boards and ten-pin bowling; no doubt promoted by such TV shows as Dancing With the Stars. Moving the level higher one notch are the Step Up franchise films, the latest screened in 3D to enhance the action. Target audience is teenagers who are much into this type of street dancing, which reminds me of a cat on a hot tin roof with a serious dose of St.Vitus. StreetDance 3D just recently hit the screens, so here we go again.
That’s not knocking street dancing because it requires
considerable gymnastic skill and timing, if somehow lacking the grace
of older style perambulations. What it lacks in grace it makes up for
in pizazz, and aggressive flamboyance. You’ll catch reflections
of earlier dance musical films: the rumble in West Side Story,
Gene Kelly’s unforgettable Singing in the Rain routine,
A Chorus Line, Dirty Dancing, Fame, and such.
Even
the hero Luke bears a slight resemblance to Patrick Swayze, although here
the beat is hip-hop - loud - and the action frenetic. Unfortunately director
John Chu treats the whole film like one long music video. It must work
for him since he helmed Step Up 2: The Streets.
New York street dancer Luke (Rick Malambri) and his underground dance team the Pirates are entered in the World Jam Competition. A mostly underprivileged group of kids including hot little number Natalie (Sharni Vinson), form a tight-knit family of street dancers soon to be joined by enthusiastic NYU engineering student Moose (Adam G. Sevani). They find themselves pitted against the Samurai team, leaders among the world’s best hip-hop dancers. A fight to the finish is brewing between these rival families, exploding in lengthy wild dance action to the bitter end at the vital competition.
Hung on this flimsy and predictable premise are stereotyped characters, and acting with a modicum of talent.
The spectacle of the dance sequences’ gravity-defying choreography remains the most important element. The film’s running time is largely devoted to street dancing, with chucked in ‘two dollar’ philosophy recycling the old cliche about living life’s dream, and some watery romance.
Dewy-eyed (with a delightfully cross-eyed gaze) expatriate Sharni Vinson (Home and Away) provides pleasing romantic decoration, leaping about with wild abandon as the lithe girlfriend. Adam Sevani (Step Up 2: The Streets) also dances like fury but looks callow in close-ups. Rick Malambri does his Patrick Swayze thing without annoying anyone in particular, having a burning ambition to become an instant Marty Scorsese.
Even the 3D here isn’t seen to great advantage. There are heaps of stretched hands in your eyes, while the dance action shots appear to be sped up or fiddled with in the editing, which becomes painfully obvious in 3D mode. Perhaps it’s deliberate, but to me looked contrived and spoilt the actual movement of the performers with a sort of strobing effect. This 3D is not as impressive as other recent major films.
All that being so, young fans will flock to Step Up in 3D and no doubt enjoy the experience of seeing long takes of hip-hop performed with alacrity. For older more jaundiced eyes, it can become monotonous for the continual athletic dance routines have remarkable similarity, a medication which on a full stomach may lead to excessive drowsiness. No doubt more street dancing films will be headed our way, one thing can be said with confidence: The Red Shoes was a horse of a much different colour.
John Bale