Briana Evigan, center, dances up a storm in ''Step Up 2.'' (Courtesy photo)

By Bob Polunsky
Movie Critic

“Step Up 2: The Streets” is a musical with a purpose. It’s the music that motivates the characters and enhances the plot with a modern day sound to give the film relevance.

It’s also a sequel to “Step Up” (2006), a film about street dancing that defined its characters with intense looks. That tradition holds true with the sequel. When these people dance, their defiant looks dare anyone to dance better or, for that matter, try to compete with them.

Of course, they still compete. If they didn’t there wouldn’t be a movie, and this sequel demands attention to the intricacies of the characters’ footwork while dancing in the streets, in an auditorium or anywhere else with space enough for twirling dancers.

The main character is Andie West (Briana Evigan). She lives in a slum area, but wants out. She is an outcast, but wants to outgrow it. Her intenseness is her primary means of communication, and it works beautifully.

Andie is a dancer in the streets of Baltimore in a group known as the 410. She secretly wants to be one of the professional dancers in the prestigious Maryland School of the Arts instead. But envy turns to competitiveness as she forms a dance unit to compete with the Maryland School. It’s the same thing Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland did in their musical movies long ago. Plot points don’t really change much over the years, but dance styles do. Rooney and Garland could dance up a storm in their day, but they smiled while they did it. Andie doesn’t smile at all.    

Meanwhile, Chase Collins (Robert Hoffman) is a dancer at the Maryland School. According to Hollywood’s manual for movie musicals, Chase and Andie find themselves in the same troupe and, of course, falling in love. Their competitive routine develops into a romance that neither of them wanted nor expected. But, as they say in Hollywood, the show must go on, and it couldn’t without two expert dancers doing their thing on the streets of Baltimore to give their movie a chance to blossom into a full-fledged musical.

The dancing counts the most in “Step Up 2,” and dancers get help from many of the performers from the first film in the series, including the same choreographer (with some new assistants) and the same setting. It’s the same set-up and pretty much the same plot, but with a different cast.

Both Briana Evigan and Robert Hoffman do their best, but they can’t help but repeat much of what we saw in 2006. The biggest difference is the cast members, and their dancing is better than their acting.    
    
Studio rating: PG-13
Bob says: “The choreography is good” 
2 ½ Stars