Film review: StreetDance 2

THE original StreetDance was essentially a movie version of Britain’s Got Talent: a cheap, cheerful, strictly amateur effort that became a massive hit by refusing to underestimate the willingness of undiscerning teens to watch chaotically edited dance routines interspersed with reality TV-level drama.

StreetDance 2 (PG)

DirectEd BY: Max Giwa, Dania Pasquini

Starring: Tom Conti, Falk Hentschel, Sofia Boutella, George Sampson

*

One might expect StreetDance 2 to offer more of the same, and while it mostly does, the producers are clearly hoping to expand the appeal beyond these shores. Not only have they cast an American lead (bland Will Young doppelganger Falk Hentschel), they’ve set it in Europe, which our heroes jet around in order to assemble a crack team of rebel dancers. Then they the get down to the business of creating a never-before-attempted hybrid of hip-hop and Latin dance that they hope will enable them to defeat Flawless, the comically intimidating, effeminately named streetdance reigning champs. It’s cornier than a field full of maize, of course, but its lack of scrappy charm renders it so tedious that the only fun to be had is trying to work out where Tom Conti’s oddly accented bartender is supposed to be from or why a bunch of jobless twentysomethings have been allowed to abscond to Europe with a minor in tow.