Step Up 3D*

*Yes, yes, I've been gone from the blog for a while. I've been attempting to deal with grief and settle into a life in Seattle - I'll get to all that. But first: let's talk dance movie!

I'll cut straight to the chase: the dancing is straight-up, fantazimacaly wow!, spare no expense, bang for your buck (and then some), A-MA-ZING. Dare I say, it overachieves. As the finale in the trilogy, it delivers. (Plus, for all you SYTYCD fans, there are tons of fun cameos - and who doesn't love cameos?)

The acting, however (brace yourself) is absolutely horrendous. Like really terr-i-ble acting. And I'm not talking about the brand of bad acting one might normally be prepared to accept in a dance movie. We all know we're watching dancers who are simultaneously trying to act. At best, it tends to range from slightly cheesy (Step Up 2) to slightly stiff (the original Step Up). I mean hey, they can't all be a triple threat like J-Lo. I get it. I accept it. In fact, I know this phenomenon well. But this movie....it was almost embarrassing. (Oh and the plot stinks too.)

I know, I know: no big surprise, right? I suppose I should've seen that coming (especially since the first two weren't Oscar winners or anything), but one can hope that the acting and plot would at least be palatable. Instead, they're actually cringe-inducingly bad. Apparently the budget was only so big - and they went for broke on the dancing.

Generally speaking, a bad, cheesy, or well-worn plot doesn't bother me. Do I hope for more? Sure. But there are plenty of circumstances where we excuse a meh plot. Take for example action movies. Are the plots often good? No. But it gets our hero into and out of trouble (all with a hot babe on his arm) so at the end of the journey we are completely satisfied. Romantic comedies are no different: girl meets boy, a misunderstanding of epic proportions ensues, insert a public, heartfelt, apologetic soliloquy and all is forgiven as they live happily ever after. Sports movies to do it too: our hero has to overcome some adversity in order to win the game (and usually the morale of entire town, school, or city) in the last inning, half, minute or period - yaaaaaaay!! Often the plot is simply the vehicle to get us from point A to point B. Sure it's nice if that ride is a high class car from time to time, but most often we could care less if the car is a little dinged up; we really just need a reliable ride.

What bothers me is a poorly constructed plot. Is it so much to ask that the character's actions make logical sense? Is a little character building really so cumbersome? Take the movie Sweet Home Alabama (Gasp! Yes, I said it. I know everyone seem to really like this movie, but it really, really bothers me. Rest assured, my enjoyment of Reece Witherspoon and Josh Lucas is able to quell my distaste...but I digress.) The conflict between Melanie Carmichael and her mother is established early in the movie as the result of Melanie's unwillingness to stay in the south (e.g. rejected airline tickets, refusal to see NY, disapproval of leaving Jake, etc.). However, during the height of Melanie's which-man-do-I-choose dilemma, her mother counsels her to "get out" and to "not end up like me." WHAT THE HECK!! This kind of discongruity bothers me to no end. Does she want her to stay or to go? To be loyal to her roots or to sprout wings and fly? PICK ONE! Otherwise, the mother's entire role within the movie is absolutely meaningless; it's simply noise. If it doesn't contribute to the plot - EDIT IT OUT.

Perhaps it's not totally accurate to say that this kind of misalignment is what troubles me so. Rather, it's when a movie has the potential to accomplish something, to truly tell a wonderful tale, to really capture you and whisk you away from reality....but instead it completely pusses out and falls flat on its face. This, this actually physically bothers me; it offends me. To be able to visualize the vastness of a story's potential and to be powerless to see it come close to fruition...ugh, it pains me. I want to shake my fist and yell, "Can you not afford a decent editor?! Can you not see the gaping holes in your story? Call me! I'm not doing anything! I'll help you!! YOU'RE SO CLOSE TO SOMETHING GREAT!" It's as though someone was too impatient to wait for the masterpiece and instead revealed to the world something that was simply "good enough." Who does that? What if Michelangelo had done that? (Granted, this movie is no Michelangelo, but you get my point.)

Such is the case with Step Up 3D. Though it admittedly recycles all parts of its plot, it demonstrated the potential to be MORE than just a "dance movie." But instead of facing that challenge head on, it attempts to disguise its shortcomings with beautiful people, special effects, and killer dancing. It pisses away its poignant moments by juxtaposing them with sterile acting and a loosely strung plot line. It cheapens what could have been a fairly sweet story by forcing what should be the subplot into the lime-light.

The two beautiful people on the movie's headliner poster? Yeah, they can't act and (are you ready for this?) have short and uninspiring dance roles in the movie. They're not even the main characters (as much as this movie tries to pretend they are.) Instead the movie is really about Moose, the skinny kid from the subplot of Step Up 2, and his best girl friend. And truthfully, that storyline is actually well done. They keep a predictable story interesting, have a few genuine moments and, of course, they dance well...but who would see a movie about him? So they cram beautiful, crappy actors into the movie to be on the poster and shove a C+ plot for them into the storyline. *Sigh* I get it, but...really? I mean, the "hot dude" doesn't even really dance! He's always in the background in the group dance scenes and most of the shots are from the waist up in the tango scene. Oh Step Up, we're too smart for that.

Perhaps I'm being greedy: asking too much of my dance movies, holding the bar too high. But in all honesty, I don't think so. The pieces were there; sadly, they just didn't put them together.

Now, just because I couldn't stop editing the movie in my head to make it better and more believable, that certainly doesn't mean I didn't like it. I mean, pfft, com'mon!! It's a dance movie!! OF COURSE I LIKED IT!! I've never met a dance movie I didn't like*. I can hardly wait for it to come out on DVD so I can buy it and complete my little trilogy and watch it over and over and over and over...

*Except of course for Save the Last Dance. That movie was terrible. And not only does Julia Stiles butcher it with her "acting," she clearly doesn't do any of the real dancing (her stunt double has a completely different body type. Please.) I am only willing to tolerate crappy acting on account of good dancing. Alternatively, I'm willing to accept a really good dancing double if: a) the acting is quality and the main actor does at least some of it (Footloose), b) the movie makes a smooth and seamless effort to fool me (Flashdance), or c) the movie is pre-1999 when it became all the rage to do your own stunts (too many examples to site here). STLD (or rather Julia Stiles) clearly meets none of these conditions. Poor Sean Patrick Thomas.