"Fame" redux generally falls flat

Rating: 4/10 (26 November 2009)

Saddled with a screenplay that wouldn't earn a passing grade in a Cinema 101 course, "Step Up 2 the Streets" is an urban fairy tale about an orphaned crew dancer (Briana Evigan) from the 'hood who is accepted into the Maryland School of the Arts. But can she find a home with the assortment of geeks, preppies and classically-trained arty types who attend the school? And can she succeed as a student without turning her back on her "homies" from the old neighborhood? Or will she be forced to form her own crew from dancers at the school to compete with the Big Boys out on the streets?
You can write the script yourself, but the key selling-point of this sequel to "Step Up" - sort of a mash-up of "Fame," "Footloose" and "School of Rock" - is clearly not the storytelling but the dancing. And in that respect it delivers the goods. So ignore the predictable plotting, the tinny dialogue, the corny inspirational speeches, the wafer-thin characters, the obligatory montage sequences and the amateurish acting, and simply revel in the moves, street-dance or otherwise, that permeate the film. It's not much in the way of compensation, I know, but at least it's better than nothing.