Mini
Honey is Jessica Alba as a youth instructor in NYC. She has the hottest dance moves and gets noticed by a music video producer. She becomes the hottest hip hop choreographer and tries to share her success by getting her rec center kids in a video. When she spurs her bosses advances, he fires the kids. She decides to open her own dance studio, and suddenly the movie shifts gears to an all out dance finish. Somewhere along the way, a cute little boy gets braids and his brother goes to juvie.
Honey doesn’t sound that bad, and really, it isn’t. It’s just not good, either. It reminds me of the teen movies pumped out in the 80s. For every Wargames, you had at least a dozen My Chauffeurs. I personally think Honey was designed to run indefinitely on Stars Kidz or whatever they call it now. Jessica Alba definitely looks hot in the film, but other than that, a few cute kids and a Missy Elliot cameo, that’s about all there is to this film.
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Get Rich or Die Tryin’ stars everyone’s favorite hip hop superstar 50 Cent. I was pretty bored as I screened this flick. The acting was passable, and fortunately it wasn’t anywhere near as expoitive as I feared it would be. There are some nice moments in it, but over all, I don’t see it having much staying power.
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Ah, Step Up. It stars Channing Tatum, perhaps one of the most wooden actors I have ever seen, as a kid who hangs with the black kids and gets sentenced to mopping a preppy school when he gets busted one night. At the school, the pretty Jenna Dewan studies ballet. The two meet and infuse classical dancing with energy not seen since Save the Last Dance, a much superior film, and one that this one basically clones.
If Tatum’s performance wasn’t so stilted, it might have had something to it, but as it is, I would suggest not wasting your time. This will be repetitive, but this film is the exact same plot as Save the Last Dance, except with the black/white ratio reversed. If that isn’t insult enough to avoid the film, then let the New Kids on the Block-ish Tatum push it over the edge.