Review of Step Up 2: The Streets (2008) by Jonathan S — 30 Nov 2009

Having a girlfriend has many perks. One of them is being able to use them as an excuse to see a movie that you may be interested in that you would be embarrassed to admit to. Step Up 2 The Streets is one of these films and the other day, I used her liking of the film to get a chance to actually see it. Thank you Netflix Watch Instantly!

Step Up 2 The Streets is the sequel to Step Up, a movie that launched Channing Tatum into the movie world. This time around, the story centers around a troubled girl Andie (Briana Evigan) who moves in with her mother's best friend after she dies. Andie is involved with the 410, a street dance group who goes around town pulling dance pranks and filming them to put on the internet as challenges to other gangs like that. Eventually, Andie is faced with the threat of being shipped off to Texas, when an old friend from her old block comes in and helps her get an audition with MSA, the school in the first film. She gets in with some help from Chase Collins (Robert Hoffman), a hunk with some connections and starts a new life at MSA, getting kicked out of the 410. She then starts her own dance group with the rejects from the school and decides to challenges the 410 for dominance of the streets...and other stuff happens in between.

I never saw the first movie, but I saw the trailer to this and my red-blooded man-ness made me want to watch Evigan shake her stuff while I drooled and ignore how pathetic that truly is. Now that I've seen it...this movie totally sucks. The acting is horrible, the story itself is very cookie cutter and stupid, and to be honest, I almost nodded off in a couple of spots.

There are two good things, though, that keep this movie from getting slapped in the face: the dancing is actually really cool to watch and the sequences involving them are entertaining. Since I have fifteen left feet, it's fun to vicariously live through these characters' dance moves. Second, Channing Tatum actually reprises his role from the first film to help Andie get the audition. It was a good nod to fans of the first film and made me happy that Tatum wasn't above appearing in the second film even though he's obviously destined for bigger and better things. At the same time, his cameo felt kind of shoehorned in and he reminded me of a character someone would write into a fan fiction story that would instantly solve everyone's problems.

Step Up 2 The Streets is fun when the dancing goes on, but almost unbearable otherwise. Honestly, if you liked the first one, you'll dig this, and if you didn't, you won't bat an eye, but if you are curious and have a girlfriend you can use as an excuse to see it, it is up on Netflix Watch Instantly.