Critics reviews

Step Up All In is unlikely to win many awards for quality cinema but it proves once again that stereoscopy can be applied to a range of genres. It is also a reminder that while narrative is important in many cinemas, there are diverse pleasures to be had in those that are more concerned with visual display. I'm hoping that the Step Up franchise continues to produce its formulaic plots as a platform for the world's best contemporary dance and that it continues to do so in 3D.

Certain myths persist when it comes to well-known movies... The one about the dance scenes in Step Up is perhaps the most baffling – because the manic break-dancing in this eight-year-old franchise has more energy than grace. Only rarely does it offer the buzz of seeing the precise rhythm of the music in the dancer's body (I saw it maybe once in this latest Step Up, when one of the Grim Knights B-boys to ‘Lap Dance')... That said, Step Up All In is the best one yet...

Step Up: All In is, like its predecessor, "ideologically incomprehensible." It's larded with dreadful dialogue and cliché situations. And I couldn't possibly have enjoyed it more... In filming those bodies in glorious motion, All In director Trish Sie, a choreographer-cum-filmmaker, favors proscenium wide shots which keep all the moving parts of the big, full-crew numbers visible at once.

Step Up Revolution had stunningly elaborate set pieces, though it was a slog to get through the exposition in between them. With All In, Trish Sie has scaled everything down to human size, developing natural transitions between plot and performance, and imbuing the characters with an inner life. While Revolution is Busby Berkeley razzle dazzle, All In opts for the naturalism of Astaire and Kelly.

...As in her videos, [Sie] favors sharp, planimetric wide shots, which are more concerned with framing the dance floor than the dancers. In 3-D—which is really the only proper way to see the movie—this has the effect of turning the screen into a stage, with an emphasis on the way in which the dancers (all of them excellent, of course) move backward and forward through the space.

Most numbers aim for maximum ostentation (the Frankenstein's-lab-themed audition video, with shattering beakers in 3-D, is a hoot), but the films' highlights have often been quieter expressions of joy. When Sean and Andie dance to Bobby Brown's "Every Little Step" through the spinning cars of an empty amusement park ride, "All In" briefly sheds its flash and calculation and exudes the infectiousness of an old-fashioned movie musical.

The dancing itself is impressive, though it can't match the crazed, stylized wonder that was Step Up 3D... Director Trish Sie doesn't necessarily try, though. She doesn't even use the 3-D all that much, opting instead to step back and focus largely on functional wide shots that take in the whole performance. She has more of a choreographer's eye than a director's eye, it seems: She's drawn to fluidity and pattern rather than composition and cinematic rhythm. That's not the worst problem to have.

There is something soothing in how formulaic this film is. Director Trish Sie is not trying to reinvent the wheel, she just wants to give us a smooth ride. Where Step Up does step up is for the dance sequences. From an early dry-ice heavy Frankenstein-influenced number in a factory, to a finale involving sexy gladiators and creepy hands wiggling in sand, the dances are a joy, enhanced further by an endless stream of street-fashion costumes crafted by Soyon An.