One of the hardest things to do when reviewing movies is having to sit through movies that suck! Also it wouldn’t be fair to leave out movies that deserve my “don’t bother” pick. I have to let you know that this review is based on not just my own thoughts, but my wife’s. I asked her questions to get her point of view, I want to make sure that I do this right and not just look at it from a “guys” point of view. So ladies you think you may like dance movies, this one may not be what you thought.
Let me take you back to the first Step Up movie, way back when this whole dance fever started. I would think that was probably considered a gamble, with a small budget and using unknown actors they had a formula that paid off and paid off big time. Why else do you think we are at ‘Step up 3’? Step Up brought a couple of appeals to the table, some pretty cool dancing and an actual storyline to work with, mix that with actors that can make it believable and you have a success. In ‘Step up 2’ we get a lot of the same idea, new faces and a cameo from the first movie. That movie lost part of the formula I mentioned, it was the acting part. It had the dancing, a storyline (although a little weak) and the actors lacked the “acting” factor, still made money. Ok this might be argued as a movie that we would go to and enjoy the dancing, we would never do or could do (two left feet).
Now let’s get to ‘Step up 3’, the dancing in this movie would have to be by far the best of the three movies. If you end up with the Blu-Ray version of this movie you will enjoy the moves and the cool little effects they throw into the movie. I would recommend this movie for what it is and that is a dance movie. Where they failed in this one and why I titled it with “…several steps back” is the story lines that they were trying to introduce and manage in the movie. They had a bunch of things going on and the dances tried to reflect a lot of the emotions and stories, that is where they lost me and my wife. When we got to the dance segments of the movie, we really had a blast. The movie was made for big screens, loud speakers and if you have access to that when you watch it, crank it up and have fun. You can also tell that the movie was made for 3D with a lot of visuals in the movie that were set up for that.
I wish that they would have kept to the formula that I spoke of in the beginning. The acting couldn’t follow through and trying to mix in the several story lines just made it hard to follow.
Again I hate it when you go to a dance movie or pick one up on DVD and go into it expecting to have a plot when the movie clearly does not and should not matter if it has one, you go for what it is and in this case a dance movie. ‘Step Up’ had it, but lost it in ‘Step up 2’ and forgot all about it in ‘Step Up 3’. My honest opinion is watch it and have fun with the dancing and music, it is fun, just don’t expect more than that. This is a rental and not a copy that I have to own. You won’t watch it enough to want to spend money on this, but you will want to spend $1 to watch it once every 2 years…
