Street dancer Andie West (Briana Evigan) is a member of the 410, Baltimore’s most notorious street dance crew. Andie’s grades at school are slipping, so the woman her late mother entrusted to watch over her and her little brother threatens to send Andie to live with an aunt in Texas. When offered a chance to enroll at the prestigious Maryland School of the Arts, Andie promises to turn her life around. Andie’s friends in the 410 look down on the school and its students, believing that dance can’t be taught in a classroom, so Andie and several of the school’s misfits form their own street dance crew and battle her former squadmates in the only arena that matters: the streets.

CRITIQUE

Look, I’m almost forty years old, I’ve spent most of my life living in what could be described as the suburbs (we don’t have any actual suburbs in my neck of the woods, but what we have is close enough), and most of the music I listen to is driven by guitars. In other words, I ain’t exactly the sort of person the producers of Step Up 2 the Streets (or any other dance movie, for that matter) had in mind when they put this movie together. This definitely isn’t my sort of cliché fest (hell, I even felt a twinge of embarrassment typing the synopsis). And a cliché fest it is, full of stock characters, contrived situations, relationships that don’t make sense, and dialogue that not even Olivier could have pulled off.

I never saw the original Step Up. I know it’s hard to believe, but I somehow managed to miss it. But I did see previews for it, and I can remember groaning while watching them. My reaction to seeing the previews for this sequel involved the bewildered uttering of more than a few expletives. Really, how long can they keep recycling the same old material?

I suppose the answer to that question is, as long as people keep forking over money to watch the same old material being recycled. (And recycled they are. Aside from the style of dance on display, there’s nothing here in terms of plot, characterization or themes to distinguish these step dancing flicks from the disco movies of the ‘70s, the break dancing movies of the ‘80s, or the lambada movies of the early ‘90s.)

And since these movies cost practically nothing to produce, it doesn’t take huge box office returns to make them profitable. Combine that with the fact that practically every undiscriminating girl of a certain age will just have to have a copy of the DVD and you even up with even more fat movie cash. (If you’re one of the people buying these movies for your daughter, please stop.)

I’m doing anything I can here to fill up space, because I don’t really want to have to discuss this movie. I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t already been said (or that you can’t already surmise). You don’t really need me to tell you that Evigan (whose father is Greg Evigan, star of the classic television series B.J. and the Bear) becomes romantically involved with a fellow student (played by Robert Hoffman, who, like Evigan, isn’t much of an actor), do you?

Furthermore, I doubt you need me to tell you that said romance blossoms even though the two can’t stand each other when they first meet. (By the way, Evigan and Hoffman have zero chemistry. I’ve seen better chemistry in baking soda volcanoes.) You also likely don’t need me to tell you that the dance crew Evigan and Hoffman put together is calculated to appeal to practically every ethnic and social demographic (including virginal nerds, represented here by Adam G. Sevani, who’s sort of a very poor man’s Shia LaBeouf), do you?

Finally, do you actually need me to tell you that the whole thing culminates in a big dance, after which every problem the leads have faced is magically, instantaneously resolved? (This dance takes place in the middle of a big rainstorm, and I was hoping this would lead to a coda in which it’s revealed that many of the characters developed terminal cases of pneumonia, but it didn’t happen.)

Getting back to the dialogue for a minute, I’d say that music outweighs dialogue in the movie by a ratio of ten-to-one. Given just how bad the dialogue is, I suppose this could be a good thing, but the vast majority of music is bland hip-hop nonsense. The movie runs 98 minutes, and 37 songs are featured throughout those 98 minutes (I had to wait until the end credits to count them, as they all sounded alike to me), which may be second only to American Graffiti in terms of songs-per-movie.

I’d say there are maybe eight or nine minutes of movie that aren’t accompanied by music. Then again, there are probably only fifteen or so minutes that don’t feature dancing. This movie is like dance porn, with just enough non-dance/dialogue scenes to act as buffers between the dance scenes. So if you’re like me, and watching people dance really isn’t your thing, this movie is likely to be torture for you. I know it was for me.

Some entertainment value can be found in the movie. Evigan is in her early 20s, but her voice sounds like it belongs to a 45-year-old woman who’s been smoking for about thirty of those years. (It’s funny to hear her try to sound sincere, sexy or endearing when you’re constantly expecting her to whip out an electrolarynx.)

For fun, you can make a drinking game out of the number of times someone describes the 401 dance crew as a family. I wouldn’t advise it, though, as you’ll likely be in rehab before the movie’s halfway over. My favorite bit of unintentional hilarity comes near the beginning. The opening sequence involves an “attack” on subway riders by the 401, who don masks, dance through the cars, and tag an escalator in the terminal.

This is soon followed by a scene in which Andie’s guardian watches a news report on the incident, a report that equates the 401’s antics with terrorist activities. Really, do the people of Baltimore have it so good their only concern is errant street dancers? Forget the war, or the fact that Iran is testing nuclear weapons, kids are dancing...in...the...subway! Good lord. But nothing can top the joy brought on by the use of Digital Underground’s “Humpty Hump” on the soundtrack. It’s not actually a good song, but it reminds me of a simpler time, and given just how awful most of the music is, hearing it is like actually finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer offers what is undoubtedly the grubbiest next-gen video experience I have so far witnessed. The movie’s visual scheme is one of grimy, washed-out sepia tones; you could probably count the appearances of a bright primary color on one hand and still have a finger or two left over. Flatness and softness plague many scenes, and while it’s likely these are inherent in the cinematography, they nevertheless prove to be eyesores, robbing the transfer (and the movie) of any sort of visual appeal.

THE AUDIO

The specs on the back of this disc’s package list a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, but that’s a mistake. What you’ll actually find here is an uncompressed PCM 5.1 track, and it’s nothing to get excited about, as the movie’s sound design is fairly listless and constricted. Surround action is surprisingly sparse, with music bleed providing the only notable use of the rears. Low end action is schizophrenic; some of the synthesized beats really thump, while others are anemic. Dialogue is problematic, with many lines colored by a looped, lifeless quality.

Additional soundtracks include English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. Optional subtitles in English SDH, French, and Spanish are available.

THE EXTRAS

Through Fresh Eyes: The Making of Step Up 2 (11 minutes) is a straight-from-the-EPK making-of featurette. (Whoever decided the word “fresh” could be used in connection with this movie has some nerve.) 

The eight deleted scenes (21 minutes total) are actually a mix of deleted bits and extended dance scenes. The material presented here is on-par with what you’ll find in the movie, so take that as you like. Director Jon M. Chu provides intros for these scenes, explaining why each was eventually cut or trimmed.

What’s been labeled outtakes is actually just a two-minute clip of co-star Cassie Ventura singing a sappy pop song. 

Robert Hoffman video prank (2 minutes) is a stupid practical joke pulled off by Hoffman and several of the background dancers (who must think this is 2003, back when this sort of this wasn’t both lame and passé).

Outlaws of Hip Hop: Meet the “401” (5 minutes) showcases the dancers in the real 401 crew, whose inability to articulate their thoughts is good for a laugh or two.

Closing out the extras are five music videos. You get clips for Flo Rida featuring T. Pain’s “Low,” Missy Elliott’s “Ching-a-Ling/Shake Your Pom Pom,” Cherish featuring Yung Joc’s “Killa,” Plies featuring Akon’s “Hypnotized,” and Brit & Alex’s “Let it Go.” (Someone will have to explain to me who these people are.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Plans for a third entry in the series (in 3D, no less) have already been announced. I plan to leave the country when it’s released.