Film Review: Step Up 2 The Streets

February 20, 2008 by Svetlana  Send to a Friend

This movie came out last Thursday, and I have already seen it twice.
I don’t have time to eat or sleep, netflix is threatening to revoke my membership because I am running late at returning movies, even for them, I have a stack of books I have been meaning to read for months that I cannot find time to read, but I made time to see “Step Up 2 The Streets” twice.
I also purchased the soundtrack, dance to this “Church” track under my desk at work, there are emails in my inbox about “starting a dance crew”, and am in general starting to exhibit (vaguely disturbing) signs of: wanting to take dance classes, work on my bum muscles so I could bounce some coins off of them, and am semi-seriously considering making some stills from the movie my desktop photo right now.

Needless to say, I love it.

Also, everyone I sat in the theater with loved it too (including Haley who went to see the movie with me both times, and that girl does not leave her apartment or small dog on a week night for anything, well, aside, (apparently) from Step Up 2. And Becca proclaimed upon exiting it “I seriously just want to stay in for the next showing too!”)

Now, I can see you wriggling your noses, furrowing your brows, being filled with skepticism so deep it is almost hurting you.
Well, let me explain then:

For the uninitiated, this is the follow up to the seminal “Step Up” movie from 2006 (saw that one in the movie theater, also).
Now, if you have not seen the first one, fear not, these are separate stories (plus the second one is better, trust me), connected by the all-time favorite movie topics of: “star crossed love” (where one is a sass ass from the wrong side of the tracks, but deep down a good, warm person, and the other one is an overprivileged ass, but deep down a good, warm person), “overcoming difficulty through music montages”, and the all important “dance-off”, which as anyone who’s seen any sports or music movie, and had their heart rate raise through sheer adrenalin of watching it, can attest IS WHAT MOVIES ARE MADE FOR. That rush of blood to your escapist head.

Now, I love filmmaking in its finest forms (I mean, I am subscribed to the “Criterion Collection” newsletter and am dying to get my hands on that Fellini-on-set-sketchbook that Rizzolli is putting out in the spring) but sometimes, a well made commercial movie is just as satisfying. If it hits the right spot. Supplies to the craving.

So, in the movie, once upon a time in dirty old Baltimore, a poor little bad girl (with amazing abs) is given one more chance to stay in Baltimore and not get shipped off to small town Texas if she stays at MSA (Maryland school of the Arts, or “The Fame school for the 00s”). Because she is now in a fancy new school, where they are trying to make her actually go to class, her old “street’ dance crew drops her and she (OF COURSE!) find a new one at the MSA.
This new dance crew is led by Chase Collins (whose brother Blake, is the snooty school director) who is so mind-numbingly hot that seriously, they could have made a movie just of his dimples, and most 16 year old girls would still pay to see it, and a motley crew (OF COURSE) of amazing dancers who are just “misunderstood” (OF COURSE!)in their traditional educational confines.
The highlight of whom, is hands down Moose, possibly the baddest little nerd in history of bad little movie nerds.
And that’s saying something.

Many a practice, dance, rebellion sequence follows, and while you cannot stop giggling at the fact that some mother somewhere sat down and named their sons Blake and Chase in all seriousness, and the acting is definitely over-the-dramatic top, and the lines like “I feel like I just landed into an episode of “The Hills”" are as dumb as they seem THE DANCING IS OUTSTANDING. And with Missy, T-Pain, Timbaland and assorted other MTV hits favorites providing the soundtrack, it better.

You clap, you cheer, you giggle, you sort of bounce in your seat (I swear) and lets face it: if we’re gonna make a dance movie, would you rather pick good actors or (damn) good dancers?
Yeah, thought so.

See it.
(or if you hate fun, good-looking people, dancing in the rain in wet t-shirts, and spontaneous bursts of applause, don’t, but then you’re reading BYT, so how much exactly can you (love to) hate those things? Not so much.)

as an added bonus, if still high on the movie fun, and at an (Irish) bar in Chinatown discussing how you “totally enjoyed it MORE than Juno”, you can bet people will ask you “what movie are you talking about” and before you know it you will have made new friends. Which is way more than most movies can offer these days”

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