Step Up All In

“Step Up All In” brings familiar faces back for a familiar story with familiar moves. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how much you like the previous “Step Up” films. This time though, probably more bad than good.

The film opens with a brutal L.A. audition montage as ‘The Mob’, the dance crew from 2012’s “Step Up: Miami Heat”, are subjected to bizarre direction and meaningless feedback in what is probably the most realistic scene of the entire franchise. The theme of this film is that the career of a professional dancer is unstable and tough, and while not necessarily relatable to the majority of viewers who probably can’t even do the running man (hey, the running man is hard, don’t feel bad), it is no doubt true. If nothing else this film makes you feel pleased there still is a “Step Up” franchise providing jobs for those hard working dancers. Touché “Step Up”, touché.

So we start with ‘The Mob’ but this is the All-Stars portion of the sequel trajectory, and they soon hit their quota of rejection, abandoning the handsome and puppy eyed Sean (Ryan Guzman) to go back to Miami.

Sean will not give up on his dream of a stable dancing job (really, that is his goal), and must find a new crew when a dance reality show offers the grand prize of a three year contract for a show in Las Vegas.
Enter franchise darling Moose (Adam Sevani), the connecting thread of the films since “Step Up 2: The Streets”, who introduces our young hero to an earlier “Step Up” protagonist Andie (Briana Evigan) and many more familiar faces.

Sometimes its property development, other times is turf wars, as far as a set up for dance battles go, a reality show contest isn’t a bad one, if only it wasn’t dropped beyond a ‘hey we’re being filmed while we dance, cool’ aspect. The crew easily slip away from the cameras whenever they’re not on stage, we don’t even see what footage they capture, eliminations happen way too quickly to even get to know the competitors beyond the ‘villain’ crew, and a whole lot of opportunities for both drama and humour are missed.

The film is familiar too with elements of long forgotten dance movies of decades past. Sean gets a job at a dance studio straight out of “Strictly Ballroom”, and the host of the reality show, Alexxa Brava (Izabella Miko) will remind many of Effie from “The Hunger Games”, but is in fact a direct rip of the character ‘Rikki’ in the great but little remembered dance film of the 80s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt and Shannon Doherty. Yep. Don’t try to get that past me, “Step Up”, I know my dance films of the 80s.

The central tension of the film – can you be a great dancer if you’re only looking for career stability – is perhaps not the strongest as Andie and Sean argue over and over whether it’s enough to just have fun and enjoy the moment, or be conscious that you might be homeless when this is over. There’s little chemistry between the two leads, and honestly, kind of on Sean’s side for this one (yay for real world practicalities).

Plot aside, and who really is watching it for the plot, the dance sequences actually take a step down from the surprisingly stunning and innovative choreography in “Step Up: Miami Heat”. While the opening audition montage, a club dance off and end battle dance are fantastic, there’s little in between to keep your mouths open, beyond some very impressive abs (on both the guys and the girls).

“Step Up All In” is one for the long term fans only.