By Thomas Leupp
When producers of the
Step Up franchise first announced that the third chapter in the urban dance saga would be filmed in 3D, that increasingly gimmicky audience-baiting tool so popular these days in Hollywood, reactions ranged from ambivalence to ridicule. I myself was rather skeptical, having been subjected to my share of hastily produced 3D monstrosities a la
The Last Airbender. But after watching the film, I must concede that the trendy format actually acquits itself reasonably well in
Step Up 3D. I only wish I could speak the same about the film's more traditional cinematic components, like plot, dialogue, and acting.
Indeed, it’s puzzling why director Jon Chu even bothered to include them. Even more so than its predecessor,
Step Up 2: The Streets,
Step Up 3D is fashioned almost purely as a showcase for its talented ensemble of dancers, who shake and shimy their way through a variety of elaborate routines and to a pulsing soundtrack of over 50 different songs. In between the dance numbers, all of which are genuinely impressive, Chu strains awkwardly to maintain the pretense of
Step Up 3D being an
actual movie, and not simply the extended music video we all know it to be. When the music stops, the film flounders.
The storyline, which marries extraordinary dancing with extraordinarily bad acting, involves
Step Up 2 holdover Moose (
Adam Sevani) joining a team of dancers in their quest to save The Vault, a vast New York City loft where dance-loving refugees from the street can practice their craft without having to worry about being harassed by cops, the traditional enemies of the urban arts. Its idealistic founder, Luke (
Rick Malambri), is behind on his mortgage payments, and the only way to earn enough money to avoid foreclosure is for the Pirates (as The Vault’s collection of dancers are known) to win a series of quasi-underground “battles,” in which different crews are pitted against each other in loser-goes-home dance duels.
How are these battles judged? What are the rules? I have no idea, but compulsory elements appear to include lots of aggressive gesticulating toward the camera lens, several menacing glances, and at least one acrobatic maneuver followed by a provocative gesture -- e.g., a triple backflip with a double crotch-grab.
Step Up 3D certainly doesn’t waste any time on such trivial questions, not when there are inane subplots to resolve: Moose is struggling to balance his love of dance with busy life as a freshman at NYU, and his best friend Camille (
Alyson Stoner) is feeling neglected; Luke is hesitant to follow his dream of becoming a documentary filmmaker; sultry newcomer (
Sharni Vinson) is torn between conflicting loyalties to her old family at home and her new one at the vault; and some vindictive prettyboy named Julien (
Joe Slaughter) from a rival crew is conspiring to bring them all down.
Who will prevail? Eventually it all comes down to
Step Up 3D’s climactic Final Battle. By that time, however, the war between music video and ensemble drama has already reduced it to rubble.