I remember seeing previews for ‘Step Up 2: The Streets’ and thinking the final film would be drenched in a candy-colored, Tokyo-Pop primaries. While it probably goes without saying, approach this fluffy junk with caution. Anyone who’s seen the trailer has either muttered, “that’s for me” or “absolutely not.” Perhaps I’m not the best person to review this clichéd mess, but I doubt such lightweight drama will even appeal to genre fans. The dialogue is stocky and insincere, the story is paper thin, and the plot developments don’t allow the actors to bring any complexity to their characters.Īt the end of the day, you already know if ‘Step Up 2: The Streets’ is the sort of film you (or someone in your family) will enjoy. There’s quite a bit of talent on the screen at any given moment, but the young actors just don’t have anything to work with. Thankfully, the MSA scenes (despite falling victim to the same excruciating dialogue as the rest of the film) struck me as more authentic. The Baltimore we see in ‘Step Up 2: The Streets’ is nothing more than a stylized over-glamorization of the real thing - I live an hour outside of the city and this bizarre, neon-lit imitation looks far too much like the backstreets of L.A. Since I’ve religiously followed every episode of ‘The Wire,’ it’s clear that actual Baltimore teens have far more to fear than rival dance gangs. In fact, it all seems trite and beside the point. Worse still, Chu never gives Andie a convincing purpose, the writers fail to make her more complex than any other cinematic teen rebel, and the film itself doesn’t establish a compelling conflict.
Rather than focus on the characters’ inner passions or the sacrifices they make in pursuit of their dreams, Chu trots out the same, tired coming-of-age elements that other directors have really sunk their teeth into. There’s a stuffy program director (Will Kemp) who despises street dancing but finally accepts it as a legitimate art form, an adversarial dancer (Black Thomas) who’s arrogance leads to his downfall, and plenty of scowls turning into cheers as Andie’s crew proves themselves on the streets. In case the synopsis didn’t already make it clear, director Jon Chu (‘When the Kids Are Away,’ ‘Silent Beats’) and a trio of writers parade every cliché the dance genre has seen across the screen ad nauseam. Inevitably, this leads Andie to form a rival crew that’s destined to show the 410 there are better dancers on the block.
Of course, the members of the 410 are none too pleased and ban Andie from dancing with their crew. There, she impresses a student named Chase (Robert Hoffman) who persuades the Program Director to accept her to the school. When her aunt and guardian, Sarah (Sonja Sohn), threatens to send Andie to Texas if she doesn’t get her life together, the young dreamer auditions for the dance program at the Maryland School of the Arts (the MSA). ’Step Up 2: The Streets’ follows a teenager named Andie (Briana Evigan) - a member of a quasi-dance-gang called the 410 - who helps her “crew” compete in illegal street-dance competitions throughout Baltimore.
Instead, I’ll simply ask you to conjure up the most wearied, apathetic sigh conceivable to man, and imagine it coming out of my mouth.
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After enduring the unthinkable and plowing through an urban dance drama, I’ve come to the realization that nothing I write in this intro could possibly convey the depth of my indifference for ‘Step Up 2: The Streets.’ I could write about the evolution of the genre from ‘The Red Shoes’ through ‘Dirty Dancing,’ I could make a crack about possible sequel titles (‘Step Up 3: The Roof’ and ‘Step Up 4: Peace in the Middle East’ immediately spring to mind), or I could try to describe the slack-jawed expression that held my face prisoner for 98 minutes.
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