Available at Amazon.com
Director
Alejandro Chomski
Cast
Rosa Arredondo ………. Marivi
Omarion Grandberry ………. Rob Vega
Giancarlo Esposito ………. Roberto Vega
Melonie Diaz ………. Mimi
Victor Rasuk ………. Javi Vega
Charles Duckworth ………. Nodde
Carlos Flores ………. DJ in NY club
Alexis Isaac Garcia ………. Peter
John Garcia ………. Mr. Chico
Zulay Henao ………. C.C.
Norman Howell ………. Notch
Shydel James ………. DJ Trippe
Luis Lozada ………. Vico C.
The Movie
With films about dance and music becoming en vogue for the teenage set, the quality of music seems to be on a higher level than the scripts thrown into films like Step Up, Honey, You Got Served, Stomp the Yard and other films of the ilk. The choice in music seems more important, and probably more costly, than putting together a talented script or a cast that does more than read lines in monotone but look pretty enough to make it all seem like a worthy endeavor. Such is the case with Feel the Noise, which has international music and film star Jennifer Lopez as a producer.
Feel the Noise has a fairly innocuous plot; Rob (Omarion Grandberry) is a promising hip hop artist who makes one dumb decision and nearly loses his life for it in Harlem, New York. Sent by his mother down to Puerto Rico to live with his father, he meets up with a stepbrother (Victor Rasuk) who shares a similar musical interest. Combining with a Reggaeton beat, which he’s never heard before, the two become successful enough to go back to New York to face his fate and play music.
But let’s be honest. This isn’t a film about characters, story or developing any of those in the particular or in the abstract. It’s about putting good music on the speaker and lots of young, nubile bodies to make you forget that there isn’t anything besides that. With extended dance sequences and lots of cameos by current Reggaeton stars, the film is essentially a 90 minute music video devoted to Reggaeton.
And as a music video, it’s very enjoyable. The music is terrific and catchy, the visuals are top notch and the film is an engaging audio/visual experience. The camerawork is solid and all of the production values are terrific. When it comes to presenting Reggaeton as a product, there isn’t too much one can do to make it tighter or more effective. It’s infectious and catchy on a number of levels. From purely its ability to engage the viewer its as effective as any film released in 2007.
But the problem is that as a film it’s pretty much the usual sort of garbage. The usual sorts of complaints for a film in the genre, from bad acting to a worse script and a pretty tepid script that doesn’t take any chances, follows Feel the Noise. As a source of good music, it has plenty of flavor. As a source of good film-making, it has plenty of crap.
A/V QUALITY CONTROL
Presented in a Dolby Digital format with a widescreen presentation, it’s an engaging audio-visual experience. Feel the Noise is a film that lives and dies with its top notch music and colorful visuals; the DVD brings them wonderfully. He colors are terrific and well separated and the audio track pushes the Dolby format well.
The Extras
Feel the Noise: The Making of a Musical Movement is a look behind the scenes of the film, but that’s stretching the definition of the term. It mainly functions as a an extended EPK, running around 10 minutes as we find that everything about the film was “wonderful.”
Reggaeton: A Hand Crafted Beat is all about the music that powers the film, Reggaeton. Influenced from an infusion of Jamaican Reggae, Latin hip-hop , Electronica and a lot of other genres fused together in the early 1990s. Focusing on the music’s roots in Puerto Rico, and its spread throughout the Latin population in America, it started out like any other musical movement: underground in the streets. Achieving success from the club experience, Reggaeton emerged to the Latin world what Rap was to Blacks when “Rapper’s Delight” first emerged in the late 1970s. It’s short and is only a cursory view, though.
Previews for Vantage Point, Across the Universe, 21, You Got Served, Stomp the Yard, RENT, Dragon Wars and This Christmas as well as a preview of upcoming Blu-Ray titles.
