Work It

I love dance movies, but this one didn't do it for me.

The dancing and the acting was so vacuous, it left me feeling empty inside. You didn't get to know the characters at all, it was just the lead's voice over explaining it to you, like the director really didn't trust you to understand any subtext.

Shallow and generic, but good if you want something cheesy to talk over. :)

A whole bunch of dance movies have been made on pretty much the same formula. Just look at the Step Up series and you've already got a handful. So if you want to be surprised or blown away, look somewhere else. This is just a dance movie. No more, no less.

In some ways this movie is lacking compared to other movies of the genre - for instance while the dancing in it is not terrible it's not as impressive as most other dance movies I've seen. But I'm no dancer so I can overlook that. It is however not the best in terms of acting. There are some who make it worth it (see next section for details), and some where I was unconvinced to say the least. Unfortunately one of those was the main character, which is unfortunate.

On the plus side, it doesn't take itself as seriously as some dance movies, and in spots it's very funny. Which leads me to the two biggest plusses; Jordan Fisher and Liza Koshy. Liza Koshy brings the biggest laughs, and Jordan Fisher is the heart of the movie. A lot of the acting in the movie is a little stiff and/or superficial, but Jordan Fisher brings it 100%. Without these two this movie might only have gotten 4 or 5 stars from me, but they add a little something so it sneaks up to 6 stars.

Movie overall is a cute, easy watch. It would be nice if one of these "dance" movies about what high school/college competitions are like were anywhere near accurate. Where are the coaches, where are the actual jazz/lyrical choreographed routines and the months it takes to get them down? Not just some pretend booty shaking to Top 40 music.

Quinnn during an interview at college, lets it slip that she was part of the "Thunderbirds", an excellent and well-known dance group. The problem is, she can't dance. So, she auditions to be part of it. She fails, of course, so she decides to start her own group.

Let me just say that I LOVE Jordan Fisher. This could have been a movie in which he makes sandwiches while riding a bike and I would have still watched it. Jordan is the reason I decided to watch this, but I was pleasantly surprised. I don't know if Liza Koshy's acting was good but she convinced me, she was the funny one and she made me laugh. I love Keiynan Lonsdale. I'm glad he was here. It was my first time watching Sabrina, I was satisfied with her work.

Look, the movie isn't nothing spectacular, but it's fun to pass the the time. However, I had two big problems: Firstly, Quinn is 17? And Jake was surely over +21 and I don't know how things are in the States and that is illegal in my country and it makes me a bit uncomfortable, she is a minor. Secondly, you cannot learn how to dance THAT well in two months. I know, it's a movie, but still. Let's keep it realistic.

The movie was nice to watch with quirky high school conversations and well choreographed dance sequences. It was not trying out to be a path breaking movie, but it succeeded in being charming.