stars as Thomas, in debt to the loan shark Sugar Bear (David Alan Grier in an ill-fitting fat suit) because of a dance battle he lost, laying low in Musical High School (get it?) where he tries to bring ex-dancer Megan (Shoshana Bush, kind of funny) back to her first love by making her “street.”
DANCE FLICK MOVIE
“Step Up,” “High School Musical,” “Stomp the Yard,” “You Got Served” - they’re all sent up in this pastiche of the recent dance movie craze. With “Dance Flick,” the promising younger Wayans, and more Wayans relatives than you can count, do a little to restore the family brand name. But they’re responsible for creating that spoof formula - dozens of movies ripped on and ripped off, crude sexual and bodily function jokes. “Dance Flick,” starring Damon Wayans’ son, Damon Wayans Jr., is roughly twice as funny as the spoofs spun off of the Wayans’ “Scary Movie” franchise (“Epic Movie,” “Disaster Movie”). The torch has been passed to a new generation of Wayans, conceived in comedy - or at least raised in it - dedicated to movie spoofs and at least more enthusiastic than their elders have been in recent worn and weary imitations of the genre that the Wayans family revived. Jack - Brennan Hillard With: Affion Crockett, Chris Elliott, George Gore II, Chelsea Makela, Christina Murphy, Ross Thomas, Kim Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans.Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu Reviewed at Paramount studios, Los Angeles, May 19, 2009. Screenplay, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Craig Wayans, Damien Dante Wayans.Ĭamera (Deluxe color), Mark Irwin editor, Scott Hill music, Erik Willis, Dwayne Wayans music supervisor, Lisa Brown production designer, Aaron Osborne art director, Erin Cochran set decorator, Jennifer Gentile costume designer, Judy Ruskin Howell sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Richard Van Dyke supervising sound editor, Michael Hilneke choreographer, Dave Scott visual effects supervisor, Kevin Elam assistant director, Josh King casting, Charla Bowersox, Beth Lipari. Executive producers, Richard Vane, Craig Wayans, Damien Dante Wayans. Produced by Keenen Ivory Williams, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Rick Alvarez. Helmer Damien Dante Wayans doesn’t really have an excuse for cutting that corner, since he enlisted Dave Scott, the same choreographer who devised the power showdowns in half the movies he’s spoofing.Ī Paramount release of a Paramount Pictures and MTV Films presentation of a Wayans Brothers production. Parodying the dance itself is a tricky prospect, since the best hip-hop dancers are frequently funny in their own right, challenging one another in an escalating battle of insult and one-upsmanship.
Cameltoe, pronounced “Camel-tois,” whose too-tight leotard pushes the limits of the pic’s PG-13 rating). What the Wayanses fail to do is deliver those scant pleasures the dance-movie genre offers - namely, great music, swoon-worthy romantic leads (a Channing Tatum or Rob Pattinson impersonation is a poor substitute for the real deal) and off-the-hook dance montages - leaving only the raunchiest gags unspoiled by the trailer (best of these is Amy Sedaris’ turn as dance instructor Ms.
Since that alone can’t get “Dance Flick” to its 75-minute mark (not counting eight minutes of end credits), the Wayans throw in references to such recent pics as “Dreamgirls,” “Ray” and “Black Snake Moan” (“Twilight” even warrants its own epilogue). Throw in a tubby Tracy Turnblad type (Chelsea Makela), a Zac Efron-esque closet case (Brennan Hillard) and an obligatory black best friend (Essence Atkins), and you’ve got your dance-movie cliches covered. Meanwhile, her beau must win back $5,000 in a dance-off or face the wrath of super-size drug lord Sugar Bear (a fatsuit-clad David Alan Grier).
As in “Save the Last Dance,” the lead loses her mom en route to her big audition, only this time, the tragedy is played for laughs. “Dance Flick” uses them all at once, pairing a brokenhearted Juilliard reject (Shoshana Bush) and a thuggish gangbanger (the thoroughly nonthreatening Damon Wayans Jr.) and watching their worlds collide. Sharks-style pairing of “Save the Last Dance” to the colorblind multicultural ensembles featured in Disney fare, such pics love to mix and match characters from every side of the tracks: black and white, rich and poor, classical ballet and street dancers. As the five credited Wayans writers are clever enough to recognize, the dance subgenre is Hollywood’s favorite place to endorse cross-cultural romances, a trend that’s ripe for the family’s black-centric sense of humor.