Step Down
Anything you can do we can do better! or maybe not as it the case of British dance movie "StreetDance". I know I'm now at an age where I would probably break my back if I tried to busta move but when done right, when it gets all the elements; music, moves and characters right a dance movie can still be entertaining but this fails. It fails because whilst it gets the music and moves right, impressing with plenty of great dance scenes the characters are uninteresting and fail to really bring you in to their world. I guess if I was 16 that wouldn't matter as I would be blown away by the dancing but it is the lack of anything more that ruins it.
All her life Carly (Nichola Burley) wanted to be in a dance crew and now living in London she is doing what she dreamed except her boyfriend Jay (Ukweli Roach), the leader of the crew clears off leaving her to try and keep the crew together with the National StreetDance championships just a few weeks away. With things going from bad to worse she meets Helena (Charlotte Rampling), a dance instructor at a ballet institute who has a problem as her dancers are passionless and so comes up with the idea of letting Carly and her crew to train in a studio if she also trains her dancers to be part of the crew.
You could almost review "StreetDance" with a tick list in front of you; has it got crazy dance moves, has it got great music, has it got romance, the rise against adversity, the culture clash and I could go on because dance movies have a list of needs to work. And in fairness "StreetDance" ticks most of the boxes, it has great dance scenes, good music and in using London as the setting manages to make it almost romantic looking by finding locations which you will have seen in other dance movies, ie an obligatory rooftop dance scene as the sun rises over the city.
But I have one problem with "StreetDance" and it is sort of an ironic one considering part of the story is about passionless ballet dancers as the characters are soulless. Don't get me wrong as they all look good; Nichola Burley is attractive and sexy as Carly whilst the various men all have six packs and attitude. But the closest we come to a character is Charlotte Rampling as ballet teacher Helena and in Rampling's long career it is certainly not a character which stretches her.
What this all boils down to is that "StreetDance" probably does work for teens who will enjoy the numerous dance scenes and decent soundtrack but the lack of depth and characters makes it a poor relative of other dance movies.
