‘STEP Up 2: The Streets” is such a radical departure from “Step Up” that I don’t know where to begin. For one thing, in this one the girl is from the ‘hood and the guy is a student at the snooty school. And then there’s . . . well, actually that’s pretty much it.
The danceketeers at the Disney live-action unit (motto: “Why Take Chances?”) have stitched together another well-
choreographed series of hip-hop dance-offs, intermittently broken up with a just-thought-this-up-on-the-way-to-the-pitch-meeting story about a hard-dancin’ white street girl named Andie (Briana Evigan, who looks about as ghetto as Tinsley Mortimer). Andie is forced, against her will, to cross over to the right side of the tracks in Baltimore and enroll in an elite performing arts school where snobby ballet teachers try to cure her of her hip-hop ways.
Possibly it says something about white and black kids’ aspirations to switch places that the recent similar movie “How She Move” had an almost opposite trajectory: A black girl from the projects sought to use the proceeds from street dancing to gain admittance to an all-white private school. Andie gets ostracized by the cool kids from outside the school who dance in a crew called “the 410,” but soon rounds up a rival troupe of nerds from within the school – plus her hottie love interest, Chase (Robert Hoffman) – to prepare for the big underground dance contest called The Streets.
Meanwhile, her ballet teacher, Blake – really? A Chase and a Blake in the same movie? – growls, threatens to throw her out of school, and generally treats her dancing pals as a terrorist group. “I can’t just allow my students to participate in something illegal!” he wails, though I’m unfamiliar with whatever Maryland statute forbids spinning around on your skull.
Making sense is not the point (Chase first seems to notice Andie’s allure when he sees her in a dress – even though her costumes to that point in the movie would make a Hooters waitress yell, “Put on a cardigan!”). The mission is to pack in lots of great dance moves, and the movie largely delivers, with several fun sequences including a routine inside a train at the beginning and a huge set piece in the rain at the end.
Bonus: Andie is played by an engaging new talent. Evigan is the daughter of “B.J. and the Bear” star Greg Evigan, but she looks – and, especially, talks – like Demi Moore II, holding the screen effortlessly and unleashing a blazing smile.
The 411 on the 410: “Step Up 2,” for all of its ragin’ dance moves and rebellious talk, is high-spirited and harmless. An MC at one dance contest declares, “This ain’t ‘High School Musical’!” Oh, but it is.
STEP UP 2: THE STREETS
Keeps the beat.
Running time: 106 minutes. Rated PG-13 (profanity, suggestive dancing, brief violence). At the E-Walk, the Orpheum, the Magic Johnson, others.