Credit: impawards.com
Director:
Anne Fletcher
Cast:
Channing Tatum……….Tyler Gage
Jenna Dewan……….Nora Clark
Rachel Griffiths……….Principal Gordon
Mario……….Miles Kirby
Damaine Radcliff……….Mac Carter
De’Shawn Washington……….Skinny Carter
Touchstone Pictures presents Step Up. Written by Duane Adler and Melissa Rosenberg. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for thematic elements, brief violence and innuendo).
Nobody puts Baby in a corner. (Dirty Dancing)
Why use a quote from this nearly twenty-year-old film as a lead-in? Well, it is a seminal classic in the genre of teen-dance movies. And since Step Up is the latest cinematic dancing incarnation, it seemed like a no brainer.
Set in Baltimore, Channing Tatum is Tyler Gage, a head-shaved thug who jacks cars outside of school during the day and spends his nights dancing at parties – rubbing shoulders with gangstas, wannabes, and girls who missed the Sir Mix-a-Lot “Baby Got Back” video auditions by, like, a decade. When dancing with a girl leads to her overzealous boyfriend pulling a gun, Tyler and his best friend, Mac, and Mac’s younger brother, Skinny, break into the Maryland School for the Arts to blow off some steam. Locating the auditorium, they start busting up props on stage, statue after statue, until a security guard catches them in the act. Mac and Skinny manage to make a getaway after Tyler’s headshake behest leaving Tyler to be subdued by the paunchy guard. Never mind that Channing Tatum is at least ten years younger and sporting the better physique of the two.
Going before the judge, Tyler doesn’t get sentenced to juvenile hall. As a foster kid who’s gone from family to family, like he was something to show off at dinner parties, Tyler is instead given 200 hours of community service. The judge, making sure the punishment fits the offense, instructs him that his service will be working as a janitor at the MSA, the scene of the crime. This is the moment where most critics will roll their eyes. Oh great, where have I seen this before. A kid from the other side of the tracks experiences culture shock as he enters a world inhabited by musicians and dancers of the pubescent variety. Where he is of the hip-hop variety, these teens are classically trained.
Before, he was sporting pants that were way too baggy; now, Tyler wears the traditional janitorial garb as he mops floors, cleans windows and goes room by room picking up trash. He starts to get noticed, because a janitor with a shaved head is sure to spark curiosity. Mere minutes pass before Tyler notices the beautiful Nora (Jenna Dewan), a hoity-toity rich girl and ambitious dance student in her final year at MSA. With Nora’s dance partner sidelined with an ankle sprain, she may have to forgo the year-end dance spectacular, an event so big that feelers from dance companies around the nation come and scout the performers. If her dream is crushed, it will please her disapproving mother. Nora’s mom wants her to think about attending college, instead of chasing dreams.
Luckily for Nora, Tyler can dance. Granted he’s got plenty of “street” credibility, but that doesn’t mean much in a school that jams to Mozart. Whoa, total déjàvu interlude. Um, didn’t Save the Last Dance have the exact same set-up, only with a few changes to the screenplay? Julia Stiles and Jenna Dewan are eerily similar; Tatum’s hip-hop character is white not black, and the seemingly different leads end up being partners beyond the scope of the dance floor. Well, as luck would have it, Last Dance screenwriter Duane Adler recycled his own script, made some changes to the core story, and called it Step Up. For some strange reason I can envision the approach the writers will take when they try to make Gladiator 2.
Carbon copy it may be, I dug it a little. If you can overlook the fact that the two leads are 25-year-olds acting as teenagers, then you can probably look past the cliché-riddled script. For one thing there are too many unnecessary characters. With Tyler’s stint as a janitor, his friends are moved into the background, popping up sparingly. When Mac and Skinny enter, it’s easy to spot the direction the film will take. As for Nora, she has a dishonest boyfriend who disapproves of her new loser dance partner. To soften the blow she confides with her two friends. And there’s the issue of Tyler being a foster kid. Rarely do you see his caretakers, though it is easy to spot the dad. He’s the one with a beer in his hand. Tyler’s foster brother and sister are merely part of the scenery.
Director-choreographer Anne Fletcher should stick to dance sequences, as the scenes in between are mismanaged. With another layer of script exposition – elaborate on the struggles Mac and Skinny endure as their mother works two jobs, for instance – it could have done wonders. It’s greatest strength is the stranger in a strange land culture shock Tyler experiences as he goes from baggy pants to a man in tights.
