Step Up All In
Director: Trish Sie
Writer: John Swetnam
Sequel to: Step Up, Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D, Step Up Revolution
Cast: Ryan Guzman, Briana Evigan, Adam G. Sevani, Misha Gabriel Hamilton, Stephen Boss, Stephen Stevo Jones, David Shreibman, Christopher Scott, Chadd Smith, Cyrus Spencer, Alyson Stoner, Izabella Miko

Plot:
Sean (Ryan Guzman) and his crew The Mob have been trying their luck in LA. But things don’t really work out, so they all want to go home. Only Sean isn’t prepared to give up yet. He comes to Moose (Adam G. Sevani) for help, who manages to find him a place to stay and some work. When Sean finds out about a dance competition that offers the winner a three-year-contract for a show in Las Vegas, he is set on winning it. So he asks Moose who now works as an engineer to join him and together they look for a crew. Fortunately, Moose has met many dancers in his time.

I was rather surprised by Step Up All In. Expecting the usual dance film hilarity (though honestly the Step Up series is probably the best one out there), I of course brought alcohol to wash the cliches down with. But I barely needed it during the film (which is not to say that I didn’t drink it anyway). Not because there aren’t any cliches, but because they are rather entertaining on their own.

I have been looking forward to this installation of the Step Up series, not only because I usually look forward to dance films but also because Cyrus Spencer is in it, whom I have been crushing on since he was on SYTYCD. And while there can never be enough Cyrus, there was more of him than I expected. So that was already a good thing.

I also liked that they kinda collected the various Step Up alumni in this film. And oh my goodness, the love story between the two popper was just so incredibly cute. Stole my heart in about two seconds. And I adored everything about Izabella Miko going Effie Trinkett all the way as Alexxa Brava. Amazing.

The bad news is that the story is still full of cliches and even though they tried to bring a bit of a new conflict to the film, that didn’t quite work out. The plot is generally ridiculous I also thought that the choreographies weren’t that inspired this time round (though the Frankenstein one was rather cool). And everytime Andie (Briana Evigan) showed up I kept wondering about what she’s wearing. I mean, dance movie costumes usually aren’t the most sensible clothing choices, but this time it was especially weird. And when I notice your costumes, you’re in trouble anyway.

But altogether I thought that it was really entertaining. I had a good time with all the stupidity.

Summarizing: Fun.