Dance movies, I've seen them all, from Step Up saga to the German Body Language to Streetdance.
Director Chris Stokes gives this dance phenomenon a twist by including young kids as the main dancers in this movie with a plot more than obvious by the mile. A young working man with hunger for success and a complete lack of care for the rest is sentenced to community service helping a group of kids to participate in what is called "Battlefield America", a dancing competition.
This is obvious plot for any dance movie these days and we know by now nobody makes original dance movies anymore, it's all about "wininng a contest with the trophies at the end", but, we can always forget that,if the "road to get there" is good enough and the characters are good enough... not so with this movie.
Character development and interaction is just plain horrible. I understand that kids maybe are not masters in acting but adults are horrible too, this usually means bad choices in casting and a bad director.. the whole of acting in this movie is quite horrible to be honest, it feels forced, rushed and not connected. There is not a single scene in this movie that feels authentic and I can almost "feel" the scripts lines being play in the background, the actors reading their lines and the cameras all over the place, it just feels so artificial that it actually seems like a rehearsal to the movie.
It's infuriating because it feels plastic and this further develops from bad to worse when we see kids in costumes, fighting each other like gangs to show who has the higher ego in town, it feels so misplaced and unnatural.
The very few dance scenes further helps sinking this movie with exception of the ending scene which is, quite good, even when it's short.
The dialog is basically silly and pointless and helps perpetuate this disaster. About 1 hour into the movie you will pray god to finish it already but it keeps going and going..
The cliché list is interminable, from the future girlfriend helping the moron coach to be a good coach, to the back and forth of the main coach, the kids attitude of hatred for the moronic coach at the beginning to loving the guy at the end, the rivals (always bad persons, not just people competing, they are the devil), the obvious win at the ending... I could go on and on and it will be a waste of words.
The movie is not worth it, doesn't help bring anything new to the table and the result is a mixed disaster of bad script, horrible acting and full on Hollywood clichés.
It is quite evident that the director put a lot of effort to gain money of out this instead of putting some heart into it, this or the lack of technical skills to make a decent movie.
It doesn't even deserve a 3. Go re-watch Step Up or StreetDance.
