Step Up 3D

Step Up 3D (2010)

Directed by Jon M. Chu 

Written by Amy Anderson, Emily Meyer 

Starring Rick Malambri, Adam G. Savani, Sharni Vinson, Alyson Stoner

Release Date August 6th, 2010 

Published August 12th, 2010

‘You're just jealous because you can't dance’ was one of many angry emails I received after I panned the first “Step Up” movie. I was out sick and missed out on the “Step Up 2: The Streets” assignment though colleagues have told me it was as riveting as the first. Now comes “Step Up 3D” and instead of being sick before the movie I became sick during and after this one. “Step Up 3D” teams some very talented dancers, some exceptionally dull club music and the awfulness that is 3D technology to create a force of sheer tedium.

Rick Malambri is the 3D abs of steel at the center of “Step Up 3D.” As Luke, Malambri plays kind Fagin to a group of urchin dancers with no place to live. Seven or ten different teenage dancers live on top of one another in the space above the nightclub left to Luke by his late parents.

The latest to join this crew that calls themselves the Pirates, no real reason why so just don't bother asking, is Moose (Adam G. Sevani) who, I'm told, was one of the stars of “Step Up 2: the Streets.” If Moose is from the ‘Streets' we must be talking Sesame Street or maybe Klickitat Street where the wonderful Ramona & Beezus hail from and where dancing in the streets would be quite welcome.

Moose has just arrived in New York to attend NYU and put street dancing behind him. Unfortunately, on his first day in the big city, Moose stumbles into a dance battle with a crew known as the Samurais and manages to beat one of the leaders of their crew. How a win in dancing is determined is your call but apparently it involves showing up your opponent through the clever employment of balloons, bubbles and other such props.

Luke rescues Moose from what I am sure was another highly volatile dance showdown and invites him to join the Pirates. Joining Moose on the team is Natalie (Sharni Vinson) , a girl that Luke meets in the club who happens to be a great dancer looking for a place to live. She has a secret that pays off later in the movie but I will leave you to discover this SHOCKING revelation. All caps used here to infer mockery.

I have filled in much of the context of “Step Up 3D” and if you see it you will have to do so as well. The makers of “Step Up 3D” were not tasked with much on the story front; they are here to film and choreograph dance routines. One might ask: Why not make a documentary about real dancers and film their amazing performances instead of subjecting us to more than 90 minutes of blithering expository dialogue that interrupts the dancing? This question remains unanswered by the movie. 

There was a terrific 2005 documentary called “Rize” that did just what I was talking about before. The film chronicled the dance movement happening in South Central Los Angeles and featured astonishing scenes of dance that likely inspired the Fox dance competition “So You Think You Can Dance” and many of the dance movies that have come since. 

”Rize” told the stories of the dancers as they danced and conveyed the depth of their love for dance in ways that the “Step Up” movies can only dream of. For the makers of “Step Up,” movies are merely a vehicle for commerciality. Dance movies are an opportunity for pretty young people to be sexy without threatening anything actually sexual. In the first film, Channing Tatum could smolder sans shirt and needed no other context than dance to do so. It was his Othello, his, Henry the 8th, his Michael Corleone.

”Step Up 3D” falls to Tatum clone Rick Malambri who, like a great understudy, carries the same blank stare and chiseled tummy as Mr. Tatum. He understands, like Mr. Tatum, that his job is to embody sexual desire as a means of selling a movie without any actual sex and like a perfectly smooth Ken Doll, he nails it. Sex without sex is the unspoken heart of the “Step Up” movies, the two that I've seen. 

That sex sells has never been in question, what it sells in “Step Up 3D” are movie tickets, Nike special edition dance shoes and various other products placed within reach of the characters. Each available space in “Step Up 3D” is covered with some kind of salable brand that no doubt spent a pretty penny to place its product in front of a captive audience of young moviegoers. 

Commercial concerns aside, “Step Up 3D” and indeed each of the “Step Up” movies, have the potential to be earnest, 'let's put on a show,' old Hollywood throwbacks where feisty young characters throw caution to the wind and seek nothing but truth, justice and a good time. Sadly, those old Hollywood movies had stars like Gene Kelly or Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. “Step Up 3D” has not one performer with that level of charisma or appeal. 

To be fair, if the cast of “Step Up 3D” had an unending fount of charisma and charm we wouldn't likely know about it. What these young dancers are called upon to do is look good and dance. Punching their way through a thicket of expository dialogue robs each of any opportunity to be anything more than a pretty face or an ad for a good trainer. 

Should we even bother talking about 3D? It's a gimmick, we know that. The gimmick here is no different than any other 3D movie; it's meant to extract a couple extra bucks from the willing moviegoer. The technology adds not one iota to the experience of “Step Up 3D.” Indeed, if you feel you need 3D to improve on the dancing in a dance movie, maybe the movie should not be made. 

One of my critic colleagues made the excellent point that if you want to enjoy team dancing like that displayed in “Step Up 3D,” watch Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crew on MTV.com. It's the same experience for free and instead of mind meltingly awful snippets of dialogue you have some boring host banter and 30 seconds of commercials here and there.

Plus, no headache inducing, eye strain causing 3D. Sure you miss out on the smoldering Mr. Malambri and the lithesome Ms. Vinson but you can get everything you need from a “Step Up 3D” movie poster.