step up 4

i am a little bit in love with the step up films. i suppose it;s the kind of thing you'd call a guilty pleasure, but i don't feel that guilty about it. the thing that attracts me to them is that the stories are always centred around these characters who have pressure to do something safe and boring with their lives, but really they want to be doing something different. i can relate to that.

so i'm a bit behind because step up 5 came out last year and i'm only just catching up with the fourth one. this one is a bit of a departure in that the usual dance crew competing in a competition storyline had been changed...actually no, they're still trying to win a competition. what's different is that it's a youtube competition and they're trying to get the most hits from performing the best flashmobs. while this doesn't have a huge effect on the story (there's still a classically trained dancer who needs to incorporate street dance into her repertoire so she can impress the judges at her school or whatever) it does change the dances quite a bit. rather than the usual aggressive posturing and the crew on crew contests where it's impossible to tell who's winning, the dances are more original and stylised. there's a fantastic sequence in an art gallery with neon lit ballet dancers.

the story itself disintegrates over the course of the film. at one point looks like it's going to deliver a really serious political message, but it never really follows through with this and the crew drop their revolutionary stance the moment money is mentioned. there are some truly ridiculous moments too, but overall you can't watch a step up film without smiling and ultimately it's about the dancing, which in this film is amazing.

i will definitely be watching step up 5.