Step Up: All In [2014]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Our original intentions were to watch the first Ugandan action movie "Who Killed Captain Alex" but we couldn't find the movie without a joke commentary, and while it was amusing, we wanted to appreciate it on its own and make our own jokes. Regrettably, this meant we also had to forsake our other movie we were going to watch "A Witch's Spiritual Hoedown" because the new movie we picked was almost two hours long. "Step Up: All In" is the fifth film in the franchise but appears to be a stand alone film nonetheless. Kay and Sarah had both seen the first "Step Up" with basically no memory of it outside of the fact that it was at least a little bit better than this mess.

This movie is mostly dancing, and that's the nicest thing one could say about the plot. A man with a very punchable face has his whole dance crew break up with him so he decides to get a new crew to audition for a show called "The Vortex" where the winners will get a three year Vegas show contract (what show has three year contracts!?). His crew consists of an engineer friend who very stupidly leaves his job and nearly ruins his relationship with his girlfriend in a shoehorned in plot point, a fashion shoot seamstress whose dance career ended previously with a broken knee, and a bunch of other people whose personalities are defined solely by their clothes and accents (Australian girl with queer vibe, Asian girl, twins, robot dancing guy, vaguely effeminate dance instructor guy, etc.). They make an unrealistically budgeted audition video and then go to Las Vegas for the show where they find themselves competing against The Mob, main character's old crew, and the Grim Knights, a crew they lost a dance battle to in a club early on in the movie. They have practice montages, but none of the montages seem to be of actual dances that they did later in the movie. It comes down to Grim Knights and LMNTRIX (our heroes) and they learn that the show is rigged in favor of the Knights. The Mob joins LMNTRIX to make a super crew and on the day of their final performance, main character gives a heartfelt speech beforehand to win over the audience. LMNTRIX wins in spite of the thing being rigged, which makes no sense, and all the characters with "I don't like you" tension make out.

This movie's script should not have been more than 20 pages. The plot is so thin, no characters seem to exist as people, and about 3/4 of the film is dance sequences. In that regard, if you like watching hip-hop dance routines, this movie's probably bogged down by plot. It definitely wasn't amusing enough to watch otherwise.

Spoon Rating: 2.5

Breaking Dawn - Part 2 [2012]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Continuing Adam's theory about getting enjoyment from watching the fifth installment of a series without watching the previous four, we decided to watch the fifth "Twilight" movie, "Breaking Dawn - Part 2." For reference, Adam had seen the first one and Kay had seen all five with Rifftrax, but Keith and Grandma were stuck with nothing. The first twenty minutes were mostly spent trying to figure out what had happened in the previous movies. Kay tried to keep quiet and Sarah was at work so it was a time.

WHAT HAD HAPPENED: Bella and Edward got married. She got pregnant and gave birth. She died. She got turned into a vampire. 

This movie picks up with her playing around with her powers for about a half hour. Then a bunch of stuff about how her daughter is an unholy CGI demon so they have to convince a bunch of vampires from around the world that she's not a danger to society before the High Council of Camp Gayness (Volturi) vampires come to kill her. This takes two hours for some reason. The highlight of the movie aside from the evil vampire congress and Bella's dad, the one sane person in the franchise, is that there is a whole fight scene that turns out to just be a vision. Adam and Keith were so mad, but Kay had been waiting for that reveal since they started so she could laugh at them. Other things that annoyed Adam include the physics of vampire powers especially in relation to the werewolves, the fact that they use cars, their seemingly endless wealth, the fact that "everyone looks like they have a stylist and are wearing a pound of makeup," and the fact that it took him until the last ten minutes or so to realize that Jacob is in love with Bella's daughter. He was horrified.

Overall, it wasn't too bad a time but that might have been different if we had watched every single movie before this one. A spin-off about the Volutri or Charlie, Bella's dad, would probably be far more worth it.

Spoon Rating: 5

Atom Age Vampire [1960]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Kay was sick last Monday so instead of the plan to watch the fifth "Twilight" movie, we pulled a vampire movie out of a collection box. Weirdly, there were no vampires but there was a disfigured stripper and a mad scientist. 

Spoon Rating: 2