Susan Granger’s review of “Step Up: All In” (Lionsgate)
The fifth flick in this franchise fades a bit, perhaps because there’s a tediously melodramatic storyline and not enough dancing. And no Channing Tatum. The leading man chore falls to self-centered Sean (Ryan Guzman), who decides to stay in Los Angeles when his group, the Mobsters, returns to Miami.
“There’s a magic that happens when you dance,” he says. “The world is in synch and, for one perfect moment, you feel alive.” Taking work as a janitor in a dance studio owned by the immigrant grandparents of Moose (Adam Sevani), he spots a VH1 promo for a TV reality-show dance contest called The Vortex, hosted by a preening, Lady Gaga-like diva, Alexxa Brava (Poland-born Izabella Miko). Since the prize is a coveted three-year contract at Caesar’s Palace, Sean and Moose, who has landed a job at an engineering lab, set about recruiting a new crew composed of Moose’s old pal Andie (Brianna Evigan), along with Hair (Chris Scott), Vladd (Chad Smith), Monster (Luis Rosado) and Jenny Kido (Mari Koda), dancers featured in past “Step Up” movies. This disparate assemblage decides to call themselves LMNTRIX, pronounced “elementrix.” When they arrive in Sin City, they find themselves on a collision course with both The Mobsters and The Grim Knights, headed by their perennial rival, Jasper Tarik (Stephen “Stevo” Jones).
Laboriously scripted by John Swetnam (“Into the Storm”) and energetically directed by former competitive ballroom dancer-turned-music video helmer Trish Sie, it’s formulaically predictable and utterly bland, except for the musical numbers. Working with three additional choreographers, Sie abandons the flash mobs in the street, which were featured in previous films, in order to concentrate on ensemble dance-offs that become fantastic extravaganzas, set to cutting-edge club music. Starting with the opening number, one routine is more flashy, daring and colorful than the next – culminating in the gigantic, Cirque du Soliel-like, nine-minute finale, complete with pyrotechnics.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Step Up: All In” is a faltering 4, except for the dance sequences.
