High Strung

You know how people say about musicals "oh, it's just a bunch of singing for no reason?" This is that, but dancing and violin.

First, the pros: The movie was visually very nice (except for the choice to include strobing lights, which people should really stop doing). The dance sequences were amazing and fun. The climax involved a plot point I didn't see coming. The characters of the hip hop group are great (especially Pop-Tart). The protagonist is likable. There's this whole Fame vibe going on with the Manhattan conservatory. Jane Seymour is in it.

Cons:

Johnnie is terrible, and at no point did I want Ruby to end up with him. The movie wants to give us dark and brooding, but instead he either : 1. is outright rude to Ruby 2. Comes on EXTREMELY strong, in a very creepy way. They also have no chemistry. The lead dancer in the troupe, Hayward, has more chemistry with Ruby in the few minutes they're on screen together than Johnnie and Ruby do in the whole movie, to the point that I briefly rooted for Hayward and Ruby to kiss.

The dance sequences are all long and basically don't move the plot, at least one lacks explanation (although to some extent the inexplicability was something that kept me going). This movie has very little plot.

The whole plot with the roommate, Jazzy, is never really explained or settled (were we supposed to take that whole thing at face value? That ending felt way too neat, in real life there would definitely be an underlying reason why she did what she did). The movie couldn't quite keep up with the amount of characters it had.

There's a point where two women giggle and squeal and hit each other with pillows, which... look, I haven't met every woman in the world, but grown women who have just met usually don't behave this way.

Watch if you want to watch some really cool dancing, skip if you want to watch a movie for the plot.

High Strung was not the movie I planed to see, but the projector was broken on the movie I paid money for and I had limited options, so I gave it a try thinking the movie was this generation's version of Fame, but it looks and feels more like a spin-off of the Step-Up Franchise.

First off, I really need to vent on how ticked I was that they thought Romania was a good replacement for Manhattan. This vent is actually important to the film's content cause as unrealistic as it is to see young and poor college students living in a Loft that looks like it cost 500 dollars a minute to live in, it really annoys me that this is suppose to be the poor rough section of Manhattan. I would not want any upcoming dancers to see this movie filled with stock footage of New York Landscapes inter cut with Eastern European streets and be inspired to come to the city and find the same thing.

One of the lead characters named Johnny Blackwell is a Brit who was inspired to come to New York to be a violinist. This character was kind of lame. He was a pretty white boy with a chip on his soldier who wanted to bring the Violin into contemporary times, as if though no one has ever done that before, His Edgy attitude made no sense for a dude living in such a seller loft in Manhattan.

Maybe it was the Multi ethic dance troop he live above that ticked him off. These cats were living and breathing dance. The only character that did not annoy me when she first came on the screen was Johnny's love interest, a good girl ballerina similar to Julia Styles in Save the Last Dance, who is at an art school in Manhattan on a dance scholarship. They were smart to keep whatever background on the character short, because the little I knew the more I like.

Then came the point in the film when a "dangerous" street gang got into a break dance battle with a group of New York city Construction workers, and that's when I realized, I'm taking this movie far too seriously.

I realized that all I'm doing is watching a large dance recital being composed with string instruments, just like the recital at the end of the movie, which Johnny enters at the end of the film to use the cash money to stay in the country. Once I got that into my head I began to enjoy the movie for what it was.

It was fun to watch the dance numbers, this combination of ballet and modern dance, once again the concept is not original, but they had some cool dance routines going on.

I wish I could say that I loved the sting instrument part as much as I loved the dancing, but more so, I really respect that High Strung seemed to use more original composing than contemporary radio hits, which is far better.

So in the end, I could not help but to laugh out loud in my seat at the Archetype characters (They even had the spoiled little rich girl with dark hair who hated the blonde good girl and the preppy White dude who thought he was better than "street hood" white boy because he had money (did I mention Johnny has a cute little beauty mark on top of his puffy lips?), but the main focus is on the dancing mixed with the music, and that was enjoyable

That's a freaky poster, but the film was good. You know there are dance flicks even worse than this, especially, it was once a trendy theme, but now nothing impressive. In that perspective, this film was a relief, a decently made film. So dance flick means people expect extraordinary moves and music, but in this, they had kept them simple. They did not press hard on either street dance or the classical dance. It was kind of fusion between them and in addition to that live music like mainly violin.

I don't know anybody from the cast or the director, but it does not look like a B movie/indie, because the production quality was excellent. Even the story was somewhat cliché, yet enjoyable, mainly for its around 90 minute narration. I mean being a short and a decent pace with the good performances and musics and dances, this film can be easily become a dance flick of the year.

The film is not just for youngsters, but for everyone. The matured contents like maintaining the decency from the dialogues to the pictures, nothing obscene in it. A perfect PG film, the majority would like it or not, but surely will be entertained. Having lots of good quality, I did not like it entirely. In some parts it looked just fake to me like in the real world kind. I would say watch it, but don't expect too much, especially twist or surprises. It's really a nice film.

6/10

I am a sucker for a good dance movie, and in my opinion, this falls into that category. Is it cheesy and predictable? Yes, but not quite as cheesy and predictable as some. The acting was decent, but the violin playing and dancing was fantastic! The last dance movie I enjoyed this much was Center Stage back in 2000. If you liked Center Stage, you'll like High Strung!

This is one of those movies that make you look at the cast & crew list to see if the actors and directors/producers are related because there is no way that his movie is actually good. At all.

As another review said, these "poor" dance school kids live in ridiculous lofts in Manhattan. I mean gorgeous. And even the ones with multiple teens living in them are spotless. Seriously, they would be cramped dark and filthy if this were true to form.

There's a scene with a West Side Story wannabe dance "fight". Even the subway platform that this took place on had floors so clean and shiny, there's no way anyone ever urinated on them. Smh.

The acting was atrocious, the music playing was truly horrifying at time. The only reason I am giving this 4 stars and not 1 is because I think the downstairs dancers were pretty good.

It was a really poor version of a compilation of Save the Last Dance, Step Up, and Stomp the Yard.

Final note: this may just be an homage to the fact the the main female character, ruby, can pull her leg past her head. Because she does that gratuitously and often. Ugh.