When producers of the Step Up franchise first announced that the third chapter in the urban dance saga would be filmed in 3D, that increasingly gimmicky audience-baiting tool so popular these days in Hollywood, reactions ranged from ambivalence to ridicule. I myself was rather skeptical, having been subjected to my share of hastily produced 3D monstrosities a la The Last Airbender. But after watching the film, I must concede that the trendy format actually acquits itself reasonably well in Step Up 3D. I only wish I could speak the same about the film’s more traditional cinematic components, like plot, dialogue, and acting.
Indeed, it’s puzzling why director Jon Chu even bothered to include them. Even more so than its predecessor, Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D is fashioned almost purely as a showcase for its talented ensemble of dancers, who shake and shimy their way through a variety of elaborate routines and to a pulsing soundtrack of over 50 different songs. In between the dance numbers, all of which are genuinely impressive, Chu strains awkwardly to maintain the pretense of Step Up 3D being an actual movie, and not simply the extended
