Film review: Jon M Chu' s Step Up

Step up 3-D

Cast Rick Malambri, Adam G Sevani, Alyson Stoner, Keith Stallworth

Director Jon M Chu

Rating G

It may not seem a likely place to find a dance partner, but as Step Up 3-D made its way into movie theatres, its makers were hoping kids would line up at box offices to bust a move. Step Up 3-D bills itself as the first-ever dance movie and follows two other films about dance contests among kids that have been solid hits for the Disney studio.

Released in 2006 and 2008, respectively, the first two movies have grossed over $260 million worldwide, combined, and now the studio is hoping it can continue its streak.

The film, which stars professional dancers in acting roles, is directed by Jon M Chu, who also helmed the previous instalment. He said the 3-D format creates an opportunity for the audience to be part of the dance experience, rather than a mere observer on the sidelines.

"The 3-D frame becomes an active partner in the dance," Chu said. "Suddenly the audience can be inside the dance, inside the dance battle. There's an interesting duet that happens between the audience and the dancer."

Where Step Up 2 boasted 60 dancers, Step Up 3-D ups the number to a large 250.

Stepping it up, so to speak, was a no brainer, for Chu.

Once aimed at a very specific niche market, dance has become a lot more mainstream in recent years thanks to the popularity of such reality TV shows like Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance? and America's Best Dance Crew. Also on TV, top dance groups compete with variety acts on America's Got Talent, while the popular musical series Glee features dancing every week. In fact, Step Up dancer Harry Shum Jr is also part of cast of Glee.

"With dance shows on TV, the audience is getting more educated," said Chu. "They're learning more of the grammar of dance which is exciting. That gives us freedom... to show a bunch of different styles of dance to tell the story."

Step Up 3-D is about a college student who joins an underground dance crew that battles a rival group in a showdown to win some desperately needed money. The focus of the film is not so much on the plot, but the dancing itself. In fact, Chu said that when writing the script, they looked for "the dancer that inspired the character... we kind of reverse engineered that.

"A lot of the characters in the film are who they are."

When auditioning dancers, Chu said the film-makers looked all over the world and the Internet to search for the "NBA All Stars of Dance," referring to the US National Basketball Association professional league.

Luckily some of them were in front of the film-makers' very own eyes, as Step Up franchise producer Adam Shankman is also a judge on So You Think You Can Dance? Five past contestants from the show are in Step Up 3-D.

"We have to continue to move dance forward," said Chu, who is also the creator of a dance web series called The LXD. "We have an opportunity to take dance to the next level."