Battle of the Year
Director: Benson Lee
Actors: Josh Holloway, Josh Peck
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Genre(s): Music
Running time: USA minutes
At what point in a movie does it become apparent that this isn't going to be an enjoyable experience? In Battle Of The Year, that moment arrives alarmingly early, during the opening credits, when we're informed that this movie stars "Chris Brown as Rooster". Ugh. Fortunately (for us), he is not the star of this movie, as unfortunately (for him) that role is filled by Josh Holloway, aka Sawyer from Lost. He's a washed-up, alcoholic former basketball coach with a dead wife and son, given a second chance with life when his rich mogul friend asks him to train an all-star dancing crew.
There are so many of these dance-troupe movies now, that it's almost impossible to differentiate between them. Can you recall off the top of your head what the major plot points were in Step Up Revolution? Or StreetDance2? Or Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming? Were there any? At this point, this whole genre needs a jump-start, as with Battle Of The Year, we've reached something of a nadir point.
During the screening, reviewers may take notes to reference later on when writing their respective reviews. This reviewer's press notes included: "Cliché, Cliché, Cliché!", "Josh Holloway, WTF are you doing here?" and "Life is too short for this". The acting is mostly terrible, the script is atrocious, the direction is all over the place, there's very little dancing and what dancing there is has been done better elsewhere. There's more product placement than you'd find on the side of a bus, with one conversation alone managing to sell the new Sony tablet ("It's the future!") as well as Netflix ("Everything is on here!").
In case it wasn't clear, this movie is bad. Irremediably bad, to the point where writing this review was painful, as no matter how much it gets slated, it's just making more people aware that the movie exists. Plus, at one point, the movie tries to make us feel sympathetic towards Chris Brown. No, Hollywood. Just no.
