Whereas the first Streetdance movie married the curiously-British culture/class clash of street and ballet and also rode the wave of Britain's Got Talent's first TV dance troup successes, this sequel chases its American cousins by being a more crass, mechanical and unconvincing fusion of street and Latin. A breathless opening montage has our American lead (who wears a T-shirt well and looks alarmingly like the love-child of Will Young and Kiefer Sutherland) being dragged through recognisable 3D European landmarks by George Sampson (who instantly becomes his 'manager') to assemble a multi-national dance crew to avenge an earlier humiliating defeat in a contest that takes place in - of all places - Paris. The barely-written dialogue scenes are mercifully brief, as there is little watchable acting talent on display - Tom Conti with a comedy accent is no substitute for the first film's Charlotte Rampling - although Sofia Boutella creates some good moments as the sassy female lead. For a film that has its protagonist's arc to discover that dancing with others is all about 'sharing the moment', there are disappointingly few whole-group routines on display, but there are some good individual dance performances, even though they tend to be shot repetitively. There is surprisingly little actual content to the movie as a whole, and in targeting the very young tweenager it is about as edgy as a bowl of porridge (see the 'underground' dance-off in particular) and overall well-intentioned but insubstantial.
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