It is an incredibly difficult thing to review a movie that is not only targeted to a demographic that doesn’t include the reviewer, but is actually focused with laser precision to exclude all other demographics.
This has been made explicit in the advertising, which gravely intones, “Once in every generation?” In other words, my parents had Saturday Night Fever, I had Dirty Dancing, and today’s kids will have Step Up (if they haven’t already filled the slot of “generational dance movie” with 2001’s similar, but gender-reversed Save the Last Dance). So feel free to discount any of the criticisms to come as the ramblings of an old fogey of 31 out of touch with today’s kids and their crazy dancing.
Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) and his two buddies, Mac and Skinny, are just sliding by through life, enjoying basketball, parties, and dancing while stealing cars for an income and maybe going to school every once in a while. After a bit of good-natured vandalism at the nearby Maryland School of Arts lands Gage in front of a judge?the fact that he selflessly gave himself up so that his buddies could get away is supposed to be a point in his favor, I guess?and is sentenced to 200 hours of community service at the scene of his crime.
© Disney.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks, Nora (Jenna Dewan), is a promising dance student at the school and is approaching her critical Senior Showcase, where she must design a performance to wow various dancing dignitaries and land a job that will keep her mother from shipping her off to college. Her dance partner suddenly comes up lame with an injury and in a school full of lifelong dancers none has the ability to meet her requirements.
She turns, reluctantly, of course, to the cute guy washing windows after seeing him display his hip hop dancing skillz while goofing around in the school’s parking lot. He teaches her to loosen up a bit, she teaches him it is OK to dream and want to improve yourself. Nothing really surprising there.
What is surprising is how little dancing there is in this thing, and almost none of the hip hop street dancing that you’d probably expect to see. Except for the final show, everything else are just short bits at practice or seen in several montages where the same move is done over and over to show the improvement of how Nora and Tyler begin to click.
When there is dancing, though, it is fun to watch. Apparently Channing Tatum doesn’t really have a dance background, but he survives his scenes well and the brunt of heavy work is on Dewan, who does have a history in dance (working at a background dancer for Janet Jackson and Sean Combs as well as a part in last year’s dance movie Take the Lead). You would expect the dancing to shine, though, since it was choreographed and directed by Anne Fletcher making her directorial debut.
While one wonders just how much work there was for a choreographer on the set of The Pacifier, she does have some good credits to her name, most prominently Bring It On. Fletcher’s inexperience as a director shines through whenever the music stops. Except for a couple of interesting scenes between Gage and one of the other children in his foster home, everything feels too rigid and boxed in, like she’s just killing time until the next practice montage. It certainly didn’t help that the script can’t be bothered to slow down and give real social import to any of the relationships in the movie, and the acting is a decidedly mixed bag.
Some depth is attempted when the carefree life of casual criminality by Gage, Mac, and Skinny is shown to have its drawbacks, but that plays so clunkily that a moment of high drama was being repeated by audience members leaving the theater?as comedy. That’s generally not a good sign that an emotional connection was made.
Without yet considering their acting skills, the cast has a major problem that will play differently depending on which side of the old fogey line you’re on. Channing Tatum is 27 years old and Jenna Dewan is 25 years old. The problem is that they pretty much look their ages (as does much of the rest of the cast, which you would not easily confuse for people still struggling through high school). For me, this was a glaring issue, but for your average teenager, it probably isn’t. Didn’t we all think we looked equally mature when we were 18?
It certainly isn’t the first film presentation of a geriatric high school, though, so it probably shouldn’t be mentioned. The bigger problem is that Tatum is apparently of the Orlando Bloom school of acting, where all emotion is conveyed with a furrowed brow. Mad? Furrow the brow. Scared? Furrow the brow. In love? Furrow the brow. He’s good looking, in a pugilistic way, and that may cover his shortcomings?but at the end of the movie, I was still rooting against him. When he and his friends decide that it is time to improve themselves and move on to bigger things, one suspects they’re more thinking of more profitable crimes than actually paying attention in history class.
Jenna Dewan is a little bit better, but then she isn’t really required to do much more than dance and be upset as various dancing partners fall through. You know you’ve got a problem when the best of the “adult” actors in the movie is rap legend Heavy D playing a local chop shop operator with a proper appreciation for education.
© Disney.
All of this is to say the movie obviously didn’t do much for me. Some of the dancing was fun to watch, but I’ve seen better in plenty of other films. As I said, though, as far as this movie is concerned, I’ll be getting my AARP membership card shortly. They may be right?how can I rationally explain not liking this while I still have a soft spot for Dirty Dancing (and Patrick Swayze certainly isn’t any better an actor than Tatum Channing)? I can’t.
Fortunately, though, I saw Step Up at a promotional screening in San Francisco, where the audience was 80 percent between the ages of 13 and 17. Knowing I wouldn’t be the best person to review the movie, I watched them keenly during the movie to get a sense of their reaction. Based on that, here are the five dominant themes I saw:
- They will, if female, find Channing Tatum good looking and vocally express this.
- They will use cell phones constantly throughout the movie, even if in the presence of security guards with night vision scopes.
- They will, if male, find Jenna Dewan good looking and vocally express this.
- They will not take the dramatic moments anymore seriously than I did.
- They will not be so moved by movie so as to actually interrupt any conversations that they may be having.
In other words, I really haven’t a clue what teenagers will think.
For parents of younger kids, the movie is a mixed bag. The language isn’t too rough and there isn’t really any sex or drug use. However, the casual criminality and “gangster” lifestyle of Gage and his friends probably raise a red flag. While this lifestyle is shown to have some serious risks, nobody in the movie seems to see any reason why it is wrong even without those risks. Oh, the humor of those rakish scalawags when they set up the youngest in the group to steal a car with an alarm.
Well, that’s all for this review, I have to go tell some punks to get off my lawn.
Step Up is a Touchstone Pictures Release.
Wide theatrical release August 11.
Directed by Anne Fletcher.
Screenplay by Duane Adler and Melissa Rosenberg.
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan, Drew Sidora, Damain Radcliffe, De’Shawn Washington
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, brief violence and innuendo.
Running time: 100 minutes.
Alex’s Rating: 5 out of 10
