Step Up
(Шаг Вперед)
“Troubled” high school student Tyler (Channing Tatum, “She’s
the Man”) gets into a mess and as a result gets the job of a cleaner in the School of
Arts. But when the partner of one student Nora (Jenna Dewan, “Tamara”) breaks his leg,
Tyler suggests he fill in. But to perform a really spectacular dance on the final show the
pair have to overcome their differences.
There are 2 things that are essential for a dance movie: good dances
and a good soundtrack. I’ll start with the second – what can you expect from a
soundtrack that features the best artists of the modern hip-hop and r’n’b scene?
(Ciara, Chris Brown, Sean Paul, 3LW, Young Joc, Youngbloodz, Kelis, etc.)? Do you really
think it can be bad? Almost every song in the movie is a catchy, sincere and bright tune,
that gives the movie essential color (nevertheless it’s not often when a movie about
dancing is based only on hip-hop). And dances? Let me say that the main actress –
incredibly nice Jenna Dewan – is a professional dancer, who worked with P.Diddy and
Janet Jackson. Channing Tatum also did a good job – his moves are original and
unexpectedly natural – who would have thought that the actor could be such a good
dancer?
Other aspects of the movie, unfortunately, aren’t that good. The plot
is predictable, most of the characters are a bunch of walking stereotypes (“selfish
boyfriend”, “good girlfriend”, “bad guy”, “good girl”...), one of the
sub-plots (I won’t spoil anything, but I can say that this is an attribute of every
‘black’ movie) looks out of place. But despite this the movie is quite fascinating and
positive, especially if we look at the world from the characters’ viewpoint, where the
social environment can’t give the young generation more options than stealing a car and
making their parents’ dreams come true, and dancing is the only bright spot in their
lives.
Without a doubt the best scenes in the movie are dance numbers:
especially the one in the club and the final one. And actually people watch such films for
those scenes, so what else do you need?
By Michael Agafonov, Lyceum No. 1523
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