the francise blew its load on part 3
When I first saw part 1 i thought to myself "meh" it was a pretty mediocre flick and offered nothing I could get into, when I saw posters for the 2nd movie I just laughed and wondered what garnered the need for a sequel, when part 3 came out I was confused again until I listened to review that stated the movie did a really great job at using 3D in a dance flick (it helps that the movie was actually filmed in 3D rather than hacked) so for sh/ts and giggles I decided to give the movie a shot AND I was glad, I can honestly say that movie was well filmed. Sure the plot was near non-existent and the acting was sub-par but the 3D was excellent, the dance sequences where fun (coming from a guy who isn't into dance at all) and everything that was bad about the movie was actually what made it campy fun.
So when my wife and I found out that there was a part 4 in 3D we were actually really excited to see more of what we saw in part 3.
Ugh, the disappointment we had in part 4, for whatever reason someone felt the need to go back to the styling of part 1 with a bad story which emphasized the mediocre acting while minimizing the dancing which included cutting way back on urban dance sequences and barely using the 3D except for a couple of moves during the final dance sequence.
To the powers that be who will probably green light the next step up flick and might be skimming this board for whatever reason - don't sweat the story, it's pointless, you have dancers, not actors! use the 3D, drop the higher brow performances and crank up the urban dance sequences, the work better with the 3D and they keep the pace of the movie going.
PS - I eventually did watch part 2 and yeah, it's definitely a lot better than I expected, it's actually the foundation for part 3 sans the 3D so the brains were definitely going the right direction, they just suddenly took a bad turn with 4. Also, I'm disappointed that part 4 didn't have more dancers from part 2 & 3 (when they were called in to help), I'm also disappointed that Moose wasn't wearing his Nike Dunks he earned in 3.
my rating, if you're gonna see it, it's fine to save it as a rental. There's nothing missed in the cinematography or 3D
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