Step Up Revolution

You almost have to see Step Up Revolution to know how idiotic it truly is. It's a movie written by people who want us to believe the Mayor of Miami and a Donald Trump-like business tycoon would be willing to scuttle a multi-million dollar land development deal if a bunch of kids show up and start dancing! Yes, you have to imagine the Mayor thinking to himself, "I know this development deal would create hundreds of jobs and help increase tourism profits by millions, and I did receive that big fat campaign contribution from the developer, but the girl over there in the hot pants and with the tats and getting all crunk is changing my mind and making a valuable economic and socially responsible argument against this plan. Maybe I just got served."

Get ready for every movie cliché ever as Ryan Guzman stars as Sean - the kid from the wrong side of the tracks with perfect 3-day stubble who, by day, is a waiter at one of Miami's poshest hotels, and, by night, leads a flash mob dance group determined to win an internet contest awarding $100,000 to someone who can get 10,000,000 views of their videos.

Then, he meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick) - the rich girl who just wants to dance who keeps resisting her father's (Peter Gallagher) begging to give up that silly, frivolous dance dream to become a successful hotel magnate like him. That's right! He owns the hotel where Sean works! The plot thickens!

Of course, Daddy (Warbucks) has a plan to build a new hotel, and it stands to destroy Sean's neighborhood, so the dance group isn't just dancing to entertain anymore. Oh no. They are dancing to save the world (OK, they are dancing to save the neighborhood, but SAVE THE WORLD sounds so much more dramatic).

Will Sean and Emily be able to find true love as their loyalties could pull them in different directions?

Will either be able to achieve the dream of dancing?

I couldn't get out of the theater fast enough.

Step Up Revolution challenges my vocabulary. I can only say it stinks in so many different ways.

Director Scott Speer does a decent job showcasing all of the amazing dancing on screen, but he seems more interested in making a dance video instead of a movie. Of course, that's because he doesn't have a script to do much with.

Writer Jenny Mayer presents wooden caricatures instead of characters, while serving up the seen-it-a-million-times story about Romeo and Juliet trying to find true love as they end up on opposite sides of the warring factions. Plus, Emily is trying to get into a prestigious dance troupe, and Sean figures he can meld his moves straight from the mean streets of Miami with her more traditionally and classically educated style to help her excel. It's like she'll be a better dancer if he just puts a little peanut butter in her chocolate.

Of course, the worst part of the script for Step Up Revolution is how it feels manufactured from some studio executive meeting. It's as if they sat around a boardroom table and said stuff like, "kids today like graffiti, so someone should do some graffiti, and they like the internet and putting videos on there, so we should have someone do that! Oh! And, flash mobs. Gotta get some flash mobs in there!" At what point will those kids, who think everything they do makes them superior to previous generations, realize people from a previous generation just co-opted what they love to take money out of their pockets for a 3D movie that is so horrendous it crosses over into a 4th dimension. It stinks, so it could be in one of those theaters with smell-o-vision.

Step Up Revolution is rated PG-13 for some suggestive dancing and language.