La batalla del año

The producer Dante Graham (Laz Alonso) promotes a group of b-boys expecting to bring the Battle of the Year Trophy back to the USA that have not won it in fifteen years. He hires his friend and former basketball couch Jason Blake (Josh Holloway) that grieves the loss of his wife and son to prepare his team. Blake fires the whole team since they do not have motivation and decides to select a new group of dancers under the nickname of Dream Team. He also hires the youngster Franklyn (Josh Peck) and the choreographer of break-dance Stacy (Lotz Caity) to help him. Along the months, Blake tries to implement teamwork and works hard with the group. In the competition in France, he has a great surprise.

"Battle of the Year" is a disappointing and predictable collection of clichés. It is amazing how many times this storyline has been used in different environments and sports ("decadent couch hires a team of losers that in the end surprises in a competition") with a corny message in the end. Fans of break-dance and hip-hop may enjoy a little more but this movie is terrible. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Batalha do Ano" ("Battle of the Year")

I have never been happy to see a movie flop than I am at this one. This movie is the hugest pile of garbage I ever witnessed -- and I sat through Chernobyl Diaries. Don't waste your time watching this crap, let alone your money.

I watched some of it online for the dancing but even that was trash. The acting is poor. Chris Brown and everyone else try so hard to be the "cool guy" or "sensitive jock" archetype, but, instead they look like a bunch of amateurs that turned an already bad script into just another teen drama bullshit story with 90s music, shaky cameras, and scenes that have no substance but push the plot forward. Not to mention the fact that dance movies weren't really ever good, but have been increasingly bad starting from You Got Served. Don't bother with this (not like I expect anyone to, anyway). Hopefully Chris brown will learn from this and stick to was he's known for; making music and beating women...better yet, hopefully he'll decide to leave fame all together. 1/10

I have a belief that every movie should be watched at least once. After seeing some reviews throughout multiple sites that this movie was not that great, and just gave terrible reviews I went out and rented from Redbox to see. I was at the edge of my seat, waiting to see what happen next. Enjoyed the story, enjoyed the cast. It wasn't your typical dance movie, "You got serve" or "Step up" it took what was there and expanded with an additional idea, let's make a new Dream Crew with the best of the best. This movie deserves to be watched and given the chance.

On a side not, some reviews complained about Chris Brown and his acting in this movie, well he did that in this movie by acting. If his personal character is to be attack, I believe that that is a different review, the overall moral of a lot of people that get TV time should be in check. I don't know Chris Brown personally but he is a persona, a entertainer and everything that he is paid to do is that.

Just give it a chance and make your own opinion

Thanks

Here we have another dance movie. At first, it seems movies of such genre have exhausted and that there is nothing else to tell about. You expect the story will repeat: there is a huge and important dance event with a fabulous sum of money as a main prize and that can change dancers' life for ever, on the one hand, and there is a dance crew desiring to win this event, on the other hand. Yes, the story is like this, but this time the director have added some moral notions that made this movie acquire some deeper sense and look more interesting and intriguing. Battle of the year is an international b-boying competition where dance crews from all over the world try to get to and get the first place. The point is that for the last 15 years America, homeland of break dance, has not taken any first place. One of the former b-boy dancers (Dante Graham played by Laz Alonso) decides to change this situation. He finds a couch (Couch Blake performed by Josh Holloway) and together they create Dream Team. Couch's main goal is not only to train the guys to win the competition, but his first and principal idea is to make them a team, some kind of dance family where everybody supports each other and ready stand for everyone who is in this crew. Another subtext of this film is "change how you think, change your life". The read line of Battle of the year is that your reality is in your head: you get everything you think about. And the same is about success. If you think about it and act like a successful person, you definitely will get this. And you decide what you put into your head. The movie shows us how their couch tries to change not only his reality, but the guys' one too and how he changes their idea about friendship and other values. At the same time, Blake trains them to be excellent dancers, he doesn't forget about the main purpose why he was hired to train this team. Of course, there are great dance moments, the competition itself is just insane. And it is interesting to see the scale of similar events and different dance techniques. So, if you are a big fan of dancing or dance movies or if you just want to see Chris Brown, his acting, go and watch this movie. By the way, the end is pretty unexpected. I guess very soon we will see the second part of this film.

I honestly don't understand all what movie people were watching that gave this such low reviews. I saw the previews and said I wasn't even going to bother watching. My daughter (9) however is really into dancing and for movie night I picked this. The movie stars off poorly with music that doesn't really fit, but about 25mins in I started to enjoy it. Now that sounds worst than it really is because it's not that nothing is happening for 25mins, but I just expected more battle scenes in the beginning. Anyhow I don't want to spoil the movie. If you are a fan of breaking in anyway you WILL enjoy this movie. If you're looking for a cinematic experience well please go watch something that aims to captivate you with the filming process. This is a B-Boy movie and delivers moves that many people have never seen, and for that it at least deserves credit for bringing something new to the dance movie genre.