Step Up 2 the Streets
"Step Up 2 the Streets" has an instant-messenger title, a text-message story, and camera-phone cinematography. Some people won't know whether to watch it or hold it up to their ear. It does manage to bring some optimism out of Baltimore, which for five seasons has been under grim realist siege on HBO's "The Wire."
Our heroine in this so-so sequel to the so-so 2006 Channing Tatum hit is a b-girl named Andie. She's played by Briana Evigan, who has Demi Moore's charbroiled coo and about the same lack of charisma. Andie is a member of the 4-1-0, the kind of hip-hop dance crew that terrorizes commuters with snaky slides, crab-walks, and tornado spins. They krump. The passengers cringe. And the keyed-up local news coverage leads you to think Al-Qaeda has struck.
Having just lost her mom to cancer, Angie refuses to behave, spending too many nights competing in underground dance battles called the Streets. Her mom's friend (Sonja Sohn, conveniently a "Wire" detective) tells her to shape up or she's shipping her out to Texas. Suddenly, Tatum magically drops in for two scenes and gets her to enroll in the Maryland School for the Arts, where the rest of the movie's cliches live. Andie meets Chase (Robert Hoffman), the rich heartthrob; Moose, the loose-limbed nerd (Adam G. Sevani); Chase's brother, Mr. Collins (Will Kemp), the young hip-hop-dance-loathing instructor; and an assortment of other multiethnic outcast prodigies. Every locker in this school probably has Debbie Allen's headshot taped to the door.
"The Streets" is cobbled together from After School Specials and scraps of other urban dance dramas - "Fame," "Take the Lead," "Save the Last Dance." The recycling is good news only if we're judging movies by their carbon footprint. Otherwise, "Step Up 2 the Streets" is only any good when people are dancing. (The choreography is by Dave Scott, Hi Hat, and Jamal Sims, whose moves run from Michael Jackson to Missy Elliott.) Otherwise, there's too much time to notice that the movie's politics are unkind.
Andie is the only member of the 4-1-0 apparently in school. While she falls asleep studying, the rest of gang is partying and PlayStationing; they mostly happen to be black, which I'd be tempted to say the movie hadn't noticed, if some of the forces of real positivity were black, too. The upside is that the happiest place in Baltimore appears to be the house of Andie's friend Missy (Danielle Polanco), where all her big Latin family does is salsa. The current, much better Canadian movie "How She Move" has a more realistic grip on the racial politics of hip-hop-dance.
Eventually, Andie gets kicked out of the crew for missing rehearsal. She was in school. But as the virile, no-nonsense leader and maybe Andie's boyfriend (the movie never tells), Tuck (Black Thomas), insists the 4-1-0 comes second to nothing - not some stupid plies and definitely not self-betterment. Of course, when Chase hears about Andie's eviction, his advice sounds too simplistic to be possible: "Start your own crew!" God bless his blue-eyed soul.
Together, they cobble together an energetic, ragtag gang of classmate freestylers to seal an aerobic, rain-soaked happy ending that defuses racial and social politics by getting them soaking wet. It's a finale only Rihanna could love. Bring an umbrella ella-ella-ella-eh.
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