Eminem Meets Fame

Rating: 6/10 (19 August 2006)

In looking over the reviews of Step Up I saw comparisons to Flashdance, Save the Last Dance for Me, and a few others. The pithy review that Step Up got in my hometown free paper Art Voice remarked that the film had some nerve to advertise it had an original screenplay. Personally I like to think of it as Eminem meets Fame. The only thing missing was Debbie Allen doing the choreography.
Lead Channing Tatum in this film is a kind of an Eminem light. He's a kid being raised in a foster home in Baltimore and he's been busted for breaking in and trashing the Maryland School of Arts. As punishment he gets to do janitorial service at that same school.
Channing's got some moves though and he hooks up with a girl from the right side of the tracks, Jenna Dewan, who needs a rehearsal partner.
If you've seen all the films mentioned above you've got a pretty good idea what follows. If the film is hardly original, it doesn't mean that it's bad. Both the leads have some real moves on the dance floor and as Tatum regrettably remarked, he found out that dancing can indeed be like rocket science.