Step Up 3 (**½)
Directed by: John Chu
Starring: Rick Malambri, Sharni Vinson, Adam Sevani, Joe Slaughter
Seen: August 21st 2010
**½ Out of ****
There is not much to be said about the acting and plot of Step Up 3
that has not been said about the first two movies in this series, apart from it
being marginally better on both counts. That is, naturally, if you choose to
ignore the stupidity inherent in dance-offs and battles in the form of really
aggressive people dancing at each other. It does however seem that the makers
of this movie definitely and thankfully realised that great dancers do not
always equate to good actors; as some dancers are given little to zero dialogue
where the temptation must have been great to have a beautiful face involved
more prominently. This is not to say that the two leads are not attractive, but
you can definitely see that the acting pool is not simply a replication of the
dancing pool.
Step Up 3 follows on Step Up 2 only via one character’s storyline,
Moose (Sevani), the gangly kid from Step Up 2 is now headed to University in
New York to study engineering. His parents are happy to know that he is done
with “that dancing rubbish” and actually on a true career path. But Moose gets
distracted into an on-the-street dance-off almost the minute his parents drop
him off, and as the police start chasing him for disrupting the peace in a park
he is spirited away by Luke (Malambri) to their dance house – where a group of
dancers live out their passion of only dancing and doing little else in life,
apart from scrounging a survival. The house is in jeopardy, as Luke can’t keep
up with payments on the home he inherited from his parents. The Pirates, as
Luke’s house is known, have a fierce rivalry with the Samurai, led by Julien
(Slaughter), and since Julien is living off his parents’ trust-fund, he has
enough money to attempt buying the house. The Pirates have to win the World Jam
grand prize of $100,000 in order to save their house – and as they progress
through the rounds they knock out the opposition with regular ease and great
passion to finally face off with the Samurai in the finals.
The absolute absurdity of the plot and this fierce rivalry “fought”
out by dancing at each other aside, Step Up 3 is actually a rewarding
experience. The real power of the movie is almost hidden in a few small documentary-like
scenes where dancers are being interviewed about dancing. You can feel their
raw passion for what they do, and you almost feel emotional to see people feel
about something this strongly. The dancing and choreography are fantastic and definitely
trump what was presented in the first two movies. This was necessitated by the
steep rise in standards over the last few years with groups like the
Extraordinary League of Dancers (LXD, who appears in this movie) and TV-shows
like So You Think You Can Dance raising the bar on dancing, and if Step Up 3
did not, well; step up, it would have been extremely disappointing and a big
waste of time and money to watch a bunch of people act like they can dance. The
final dance from the Pirates is so spectacular that you will leave the cinema
on a high and be persuaded to not care about anything else the movie offers.
Step Up 3 is an improvement on the first two movies, and the last 10 minutes
alone are worth the price of admission, if you’re a fan of this kind of thing.
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