If you've seen more than one of the modern rash of street dance movies, especially the Step Up franchise or its UK counterpart StreetDance, you might be forgiven for experiencing a feeling of déjà vu. All these films have much the same plot. There are rival gangs, a Romeo and Juliet-style romance often featuring a PG-rated bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, and a rather sanitised depiction of the temptations facing inner city yoof.
It all leads to a big urban dance-off, in which the opponents leap around energetically rather than drawing knives or guns.
That said, nobody goes to see these things for their narrative innovation. It's those slickly choreographed routines that pull in the crowds. And dance flicks are now very big business indeed.
British Film Institute figures reveal StreetDance 3D was the 11th most successful British independent film since 1990, ahead of Bend It Like Beckham.
Best known as the series that launched Channing Tatum's career back in 2006, Step Up doesn't stray too far from formula for its fourth outing. Kathryn McCormick has the nice middle class girl role, while Ryan Guzman plays the sexy, mildly transgressive guy from the wrong side of the tracks. When a nasty capitalist threatens to redevelop the crew's neighbourhood, making Ryan's "edgy" flashmob crew homeless, everybody must pull together to defeat him by hoofing about in a revolutionary fashion.
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