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