Why is 80’s nostalgia so in vogue right now? Lady Gaga, neon
color schemes and shutter shades all harken back to maybe a simpler, if
not more outrageous time. What’s stranger, is that this grasp for the past is
celebrated by an entire generation who wasn’t even born in the 80’s , or were
at least too young to really remember it.
I have a theory. The 80’s was a stylistically
overindulgent time of excess but done so with a certain amount of naivety. Because
of that innocence, it appears like everyone was having ridiculous fun and
didn’t care if they looked stupid. Unfortunately, now, in the post-modern world
we live in, we aren’t allowed to have that kind of fun anymore. Everything has
to be ironic, sarcastic, cross advertised and fed back into the mainstream,
only to reexamined, parodied and uploaded to youtube hours later. Maybe this is why, against my better judgment,
I just can’t hate the Step Up movies. Sure, they’re not “good” but they are
what too many movies don’t try to be anymore, innocent fun.
“Step Up Revolution” is now the
fourth in this long standing series. Starting with mild ambitions, the first “Step
Up” was a small unassuming genre film and it wasn’t bad or good. “Step Up 2:
The Streets”—perhaps the best name for a sequel since “Breakin 2: Electric
Boogaloo”—brought in the young director Jon M. Chu, who infused this franchise with
a Pop-Rocks and Coke sugar-high sensibility that reinvigorated the dance movie genre. In
“Step Up 3D” Chu did his thing yet again and has made maybe the best argument for
3D films, with what I regard as the strongest movie of the four.
This
time the movie takes us to a beach community in Miami. Sean (Ryan Guzman) and
Eddy (Misha Gabriel Hamilton) are best friends who work part time at a hotel,
but moonlight as the leaders of a secret dance group called The Mob, who hijack
public settings to perform their tightly choreographed dance numbers, in hopes
of making money from a youtube contest.
There, Sean meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick), the daughter of the hotel
owner (Peter Gallagher) who plans on constructing a new resort location,
forcing all of the local businesses to close down or move. Emily Joins The Mob
and declares “Enough with performance art, it’s time for protest art.”
Okay,
so how does this one step up to its predecessors? Well, Jon M. Chu, has stepped
down from the directing seat and you can really notice it. The dance sequences
are edited a bit choppier and the energy between those numbers is not as
vibrant or well-paced. Also, this story is weirdly trying to be a little too
political and socially relevant for its own good. What we have here is an occupy-era movie that
is masquerading as a Florida beach, dance-flick—or perhaps the other way around.
That would be interesting if “Magic Mike” hadn’t already done that a few months
ago and did it a lot better.
With
all of that said, did I hate “Step Up Revolution”? Absolutely not. Sure, the
performances were laughably weak, the love story doesn’t work at all and it’s too
slow in spots, but that stuff isn’t the reason we go to see these movies.
The dancing is still very impressive, the staunchly dubstep soundtrack is
entrancing, and the cinematography is very nice to look at. These movies are
doing over-produced cinematic trash better than anyone else and for that they will always get have my money. I had fun and I was
still able to enjoy my guilty pleasure, even if this one is definitely no “Step Up 3D”.
Originally Published in The Idaho State Journal/Aug-2012
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