STEP UP REVOLUTION

Director: Scott Speer

Cast: Ryan Guzman, Katherine McCormick, Adam Sevani, Misha Gabriel, Peter Gallagher

Review by James Colt Harrison

Everything about Step Up Revolution leans to providing beauty for the audience, including a very handsome young cast of unknowns who can dance like the dickens. One of the reasons the dancers are so good is because producer Adam Shankman (Hairspray ) has Mia Michaels playing a dance instructor, just as she does on the hit TV show So You Think You Can Dance. Also from that show is the leading lady, Kathryn McCormick, a graduate from the sixth season.

In order to tie all the latest spectacular dance numbers together, a plot had to be written by Jenny Mayer. When Emily Anderson (McCormick), the daughter of a wealthy land developer (Peter Gallagher) arrives in Miami with hopes of becoming a professional dancer, her plans are thwarted when she meets young Sean (movie-star handsome newcomer Ryan Guzman). Sean has formed a new dance crew who perform wild, innovative, and spectacular dance moves which they use at flash mobs. Cleverly, he calls them The Mob, but they are always out to do good with their surprise dancing  in unsuspecting locations.

What does a director do when he has two beautiful young specimens in front of his 3D cameras? He makes them fall in love, even though they come from different worlds. Sean is from a mixed ethnic community that her dad is determined to demolish and displace thousands of people and put up a high-rise hotel. Emily was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. But the kids throw the silverware aside and fall into passionate love anyway. They couldn’t be more adorable.

Emily joins up with the Mob to protest the new construction as a means of doing something good for the community. Her dad nearly has an attack of apoplexy, but gets all teary-eyed when he sees what a good dancer she is after all. Gallagher is either a good actor or he had onions in his coat pocket.

The dancing style, with help from choreographers Chuck Maldonado, Jamal Sims, and Christopher Scott, seems to come from the future because it is so new and innovative. Most of it looks like it could be a routine in the Olympic gymnastics. Stamina is certainly one ingredient needed, and the young dancers have it by the bushel. It’s exhausting just watching them jump, spin, and leap with the strength of a truck-stop ballerina. The kids are all talented, and the producers seem to have hired only the best dancers of this rough and tumble genre. It is thoroughly entertaining to watch these energetic kids in action. The film is terrifically exciting. With music by stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Justin Beiber and Busta Rhymes, how could they go wrong?

With spectacular 3D photography by cinematographer Karsten Gopinath, Step Up Revolution is nearly a travelogue for Miami and its gorgeous beaches. Taking advantage of the natural beauty of the city and its watery surroundings, Gopinath comes out a winner for using the 3D process to advantage by turning the aerial scenes into cotton candy for the eyes.

  

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