The Step Up series has always been a guilty pleasure. The dialogue is usually leaden with cliches of dance movies past (Fame) while the dance moves and battles were off the chain. Step Up 2 had better dancing than the first and Step Up 3-D is easily the best of the series. The slender plot never gets in the way of the awesome dancing and hot hip-hop/pop soundtrack. The movie has the usual lame dialogue but less of it this time, and it also has the most dancing of any Step Up flick to date. Directed by Jon Chu with serious energy and style to burn, Step Up 3-D is even worth the ticket price upgrade. See it in 3-D, it looks terrific.

The plot is about a post-racial group of dancers who live together called The Pirates, a bland bunch of brooders and clowns whose main competition are the Samurai. We know the Samurai are evil because they dress in Black and their leader is an arrogant, rich white kid who does a halfway decent sneer left over from an old CW soap. The leader of the Pirates named Luke (played by a kind of Channing Tatum stand-in) must fight to save his property and keep his fellow Pirates from being evicted. He falls for a mysterious dancer named Natalie and battles his arch rival named Julien (he of said decent sneer). The highlight is a gangly kid named Moose, he’s a terrific dancer and a charismatic screen performer.

Enough about the plot, the movie is filled with dance battles, awesome 3D effects, and many cheer-worthy moments. My audience seemed to love it and why not, in a summer of superhero duds (Iron Man 2) and half-hearted and evil feminist claptrap (Sex and the City 2), audiences need a mindless entertainment with visual flash and an unpretentious story. Step Up 3D more than fits the bill.

Grade: B+

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