Talkie Tuesday: Step Up - All In

Hello everyone!

It's Talkie Tuesday so it's time for another movie review, and for this week I picked another dance movie (I know, I've already done 'Make Your Move', which you can find here, but I can't help myself, I love dancing stuff!): the fifth installment in the Step Up series, subtitled 'All In'.

Now, when I first saw the beginnings of the franchise, back when Channing Tatum was the biggest hit in dancing anyone had ever seen at the time, I thought to myself that this was probably a franchise that could make a couple more movies and then tie it all off gracefully. The second one, 'The Streets', came off already-weaker than it's predecessor, but I got my hopes up with number 3, although they were dashed, except at a few moments, with 'Revolution' again. So I guess I was kind of hoping for a whole lot from five, given the history of uneven numbers and the like.

Step Up: All In

Unfortunately, even though the trailer itself was pretty good, the movie left me wanting for more, or maybe wanting the franchise to finally stop (but seeing as they've already started planning and prepping for a sixth movie, I doubt that'll be the case). It was predictable, which in itself wouldn't have been that bad if the scenes would have meshed well or if the actors wouldn't have looked so wooden a lot of the times, but sadly even the dancing didn't quite catch on as much as in the earlier films!

Long story short, plot-wise: Sean, who we remember from 'Revolution' is now in LA with The Mob trying to get a gig. It's not working, so The Mob splits, leaving him behind. Moose helps him out to get some work. They see an add for this thing called 'The Vortex', and start pulling a crew together. The good bits here include some of the old favourites from previous movies, so that's a plus. They all travel to Vegas to compete, where, surprise! Sean's old crew is also dancing, so tension there, and tension in LMNTRIX (Sean's new group) because of obvious reasons, too much work, too little time, too much drama. Andie, from 'The Streets', causes our male protagonist to lose his heart (and his ability to talk, too), but obviously things don't go smoothly. And of course, the show is rigged so there's no way LMNTRIX can win, but hey, they pull it together, or Sean does, with a lot of apologizing, and the only note-worthy dance number and the one thing I always look forward to in a Step Up movie, the final round of dancing.

Step Up: All In

So, all in all, not much to think about here. The dialogue was mediocre, and not executed as well as it could have been at times. Or maybe the scenes just weren't quite right. Cuteness overload, however, with Moose and Camille, and Vlad and his newly-found lady-love. The Chad character made me laugh, and I will admit that watching Ryan Guzman on screen was quite satisfying. I do wish, however, that they could have somehow pulled in some other leads from previous films, to support the grand title. Or maybe ... I don't know.

I found myself fast-forwarding through a lot of the movie scenes, only really stopping to see the dances, which is pretty bad for a movie that's almost two hours long. I think the franchise has definitely spun it all out by now, and there isn't much that hasn't already been said.

So maybe it's time to cut the losses? We'll see what happens with 6, which I will faithfully watch like I have all the others, but at this point, I'm not expecting much.

Also, side-note - the photoshop done on Briana for the promo posters is ridiculous, and completely unnecessary.

Has anyone else watched 'Step Up: All In', and what did you think?

Have a good one x