It is a well-known fact of movie tradition that dancing can cure just about any social or psychological ill. “Step Up” presents a variation on the kid-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks redemption story, and it’s all as easy as a flick of the ankle.
The kid is a Baltimore hoodlum named Tyler (Channing Tatum), who gets arrested one night after breaking into the Maryland School of the Arts and trashing the theater. His community service is custodial work at the school, but pretty soon his skill set as a street dancer brings him to the attention of the serious ballet dancers at the school.
In particular, pretty senior Nora (Jenna Dewan) needs a rehearsal partner for her big final project.
Can Nora reconcile herself to Tyler’s rough ways? Can Tyler inject a little soul into Nora’s staid choreography? Will the two hit it off backstage?
Go ahead, twist my arm. I will not reveal the answers to these burning questions. But that’s probably not the point anyway.
Despite the predictability of the story line, the film will find an audience, simply because there is always an audience for stories about young people learning life lessons via dancing.
I myself didn’t care much about this process, not because it’s been done umpteen times but because I didn’t care about the rehabilitation of the hoodlum (he seems all too convincingly a jerk in the early reels) and because the two stars don’t bring enough interest to their roles.
Jenna Dewan can dance all right, but is otherwise straight off the assembly line for young starlets. Channing Tyler has the kind of broken, tough-guy look that casting directors like, but his mumbling doesn’t recall Marlon Brando so much as it recalls the sullen Metallica fan who flunked out of your chemistry class in high school.
The only name actor is Rachel Griffiths, from “Six Feet Under,” who plays the dean of the art school. She doesn’t have much to do but look bemused by the silly kids under her tutelage, but she does that well. Which just confirms my suspicions that Rachel Griffiths can do no wrong, even in lame circumstances.
“Step Up” is directed by a choreographer, Anne Fletcher, which doesn’t mean the dancing is shot any better than the usual chop-chop MTV style. At least during the dancing nobody’s talking … a blessing in a movie like this.
Jenna Dewan and Channing Tyler star in “Step Up.”
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