StreetDance 3D

There have been so many dance movies in the last while even The Wayans have cashed in with the parody Dance Flick, but still they come. So what has Streetdance 3D to offer that Step Up, How She Move, etc didn't? There are two differences - this is a British production and it's in 3D - but it's the same old story.

What a bummer - dancer Carly (Burley, Donkey Punch) has been dumped by her boyfriend five weeks before her crew are to appear in the finals of the UK Street Dance Championship. With nowhere to practice, ballet instructor Helena (Rampling) offers her studio in exchange for teaching her uninspired ballet dancers some fresh moves, something the richies at the school frown upon. Will the toffs and the scruffs put behind their differences in time for the finals?

Same story, slightly tweaked seems to be the raison d'etre of dance movies and each one a copy of a copy of a copy (rumour has it that the next outing will see a dance crew teach three-legged cows some fresh moves... But will they get it right before the Cattle Mart at the end of the month?). The '3D' of the title is a misnomer - there's nothing 'three dimensional' about the film but it does what it's supposed to. I'll try to explain what I mean by that...

Streetdance 3D is a film created solely for promoting the Britain's Got Talent crowd of Flawless, Diversity, George Sampson, and, more importantly, selling hats, T-shirts and trainers. In every scene Nichola Burley is wearing something different, her hat cocked to one side so the audience can clearly see it's Nike, Fila or Adidas. What the 3D does here is make 'Adidas' look like 'ADIDAS' (all it needs is a superimposed arrow pointing at the various garments with a word bubble saying Buy This!). Lines like "trainers are rule number one," and "everybody in Topshop can see us!" (not "everybody can see us" but "everybody in Topshop can see us") are rife throughout, while the clothes in Carly's ex-boyfriend's room is laid out like a window display. This movie is product placement taken to its extreme, a 98-minute advertisement.

To critique the story is pointless, as they all follow the same formula. The choreography is impressive at first, but when each routine has to up the ante on the last, it soon turns into nothing more than exaggerated mime: do the windmill, do the box, stop the traffic, kick the dog. The acting is amateurish at best (Rampling phones it in, and while Sampson is full of bounce and energy, he's relegated to a bit part) and some of the dialogue sounds dubbed, as if one bad delivery was dubbed over in favour of another. This is just poor filmmaking, rushed out before the kids get bored with this dance craze.