In the tradition of any number of stories where a boy from the wrong side of the tracks falls for a posh girl, Step Up follows rebellious Tyler as he's forced to work with ballet dancer Nora to create a performance that could change both of their lives forever. Naturally, as young people thrown into these sorts of situations are wont to do, they fall madly and passionately in love, ...
In adapting his own novel The Cider House Rules for the screen, John Irving sacrificed at least some of the depth and detail that made his humanitarian themes resonate, while the film--directed with Scandinavian sobriety by Lasse Hallström--is often vague about the complex issues (abortion, incest, responsibility) that lie at its core. Allowing for this ambiguity (which is arguably ...
Step Up Step Up happily joins the long line of movies intoxicated by sexy bodies in motion. When an overachieving dancer (Jenna Dewan, Take the Lead) at an East Coast art school loses her partner just before a big showcase, her only possible replacement is a young tough (Channing Tatum, She's the Man) doing community service as a janitor. From there, Step Up ...
The frantic pacing of Big Trouble is surely intentional, but the movie leaves you wanting more of... something. Not more characters--it's got plenty of those--but more room for them to breathe in a top-heavy plot that recalls Get Shorty (also directed by Barry Sonnenfeld) without reaching those heights of ingenuity. Based on the bestseller by syndicated Miami Herald columnist ...