Dancin': It's On! (2015) Reviews

• (my wife upon us finishing this movie): "Its things like this that keep a marriage together."

  Quinoa19842016-08-20

  Somehow the director and sometimes actor David Winter of SPACE MUTINY (one of the hallowed classics in Mystery Science Theater 3000 lore) was unfrozen from his peaceful cryogenic sleep and was tasked in 2015 to make a dopey Step Up style dance movie. Lo and behold he concocts the kind of material that lucid nightmares are made of: ADR that would make Tommy Wiseau cringe, acting where it seems like Winter drank up their personalities to the point that the actors appeared like pod people out of a 1950s movie (which I might add Winter may have acted in!) and dancing which, while Im sure a little better than I can do, is still at best laughably funny and at worst a cacophony of off styles and choppy editing (ooh the climax ooh). In other words, Winter may have topped himself from his Mutiny days; this is shockingly inept and terrible, a movie that might be simply forgettable crap if not for the fact that it got an *actual theatrical release on more than 100 screens* (though it somehow missed the missile silo known as Rotten Tomatoes). It features all of the separate elements that are part of what makes a movie a "movie"- romance, spectacle, location (Panama City and if you don't get that's where this is don't worry a montage will show you), choreography (in a matter of speaking), "humor", uh, ladies on stilts walking around a lobby, a token black bellhop who dances whenever someone he talks to walks off screen)- but its as if the cook putting this stew together hit his head on solid concrete and then threw it all on to a final cut pro time-line and said 'eh ***k it." This is a The Room level disaster. I almost wish I could go into all of the things that make this so awful but simultaneously uproariously monumentally wall shatteringly funny but you got to see (and hear) the miasma to believe it. This group of Community theater dance players (with a forgotten Z level action hero as the strangely one dimensional "fighter" cum hotel owner father of the girl who falls for the - gasp - dishwasher dancer at the hotel he runs and the father cant stand the double gasp she may like him!) is among the least talented and pushed to less than zero degrees. Oh and not to mention all of the super on the nose songs and things like the guy who goes through the pains of love (hint the hotel owners daughter is forced into a relationship with a preppie manager at the hotel) having an ANGRY DANCE ACROSS THE CITY MONTAGE! Or how people randomly, in this surreal candy-colored-clown-surreal landscape break out into dancing and food fights and the lighting looks like it's by a guy who's never thought about things like a THREE POINT LIGHTING set, oh, nevermind. The key thing is this is sincere, and because of that it commits to its worldview which is 100% banana-pants. It deserves to be discovered and have midnight screenings in major cities with people cosplaying as minor characters in the darn thing. Its the stuff cult classic is made of... And its so bad.

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• So bad. So so bad.

  saintruthanne2016-07-05

  This movie gets a 3 only because the actors (if you can call them that) can dance really well. The dancing was fun to watch. That's it for the good stuff. The acting. Where to begin? So wooden and awful! This movie seemed like a parody that a late night comedian would put out...it was laughably bad. Including the part where Ken, the main actor, said "I just need some SPACE right now!" Wow. High School Musical and Step Up were INFINITELY better than this movie, and that is saying something. The main girl, Whitney Carson, was not so bad, but everyone else, from her dad to the "Captain," we're just weak.

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• Dancing, dancing everywhere!

  BrianDanaCamp2015-11-04

  DANCIN' IT'S ON (2015) is amateurish on most levels and boasts some of the worst acting I've seen on the big screen in decades, but it has crude charm and a consistent vitality that I found quite endearing and loads of fun. It's set in an alternate universe (identified on screen as Panama City Beach, Florida) where random people break out into spontaneous dance numbers at all hours of the day at the drop of a hat. What's not to love? The hoary plot has to do with a rich girl who loves to dance staying at her father's hotel for the summer who falls in love with a dishwasher who's a great dancer while her disapproving father has lined up his snotty protégé as the intended suitor for her, leading to all sorts of class conflict clichés that went out of favor decades ago. All this is just an excuse for two things: a steady stream of dance numbers and frequent infomercial spots extolling the virtues of Panama City Beach as a tourist resort. That's actually not a bad trade-off, especially since it leads to an exhilarating dance finale at the Florida Statewide Dance Contest where true love wins out and competing couples dance their hearts out. Witney Carson, from the TV show, "Dancing with the Stars," plays the lead character, Jennifer, and she's awfully cute and a skilled dancer even if her line readings sound like...well, line readings! Her co-star, with the unwieldy name of Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, actually puts some effort into creating his character, Ken, the dishwasher-dancer, and deserves some props for trying, even if some acting lessons are still in order. He hails from the show, "So You Think You Can Dance." The other young performers are noticeably lacking in charisma, although the dreadlocked Russell Ferguson, also from "So You Think You Can Dance," brings abundant good cheer and punctuates the proceedings with trademark arm and hand moves from the "Electric Boogie" school of dance that flourished 30 years ago. He plays the youthful but all-knowing hotel doorman, known as "the Captain," and shows up as the MC at the big dance contest. My favorite sequence finds poor Jennifer, brooding after a breakup, sitting alone on a bench on a darkened shopping street in downtown Panama City Beach at night, suddenly interrupted by a row of SUVs turning on their lights and a Latin band, complete with percussion section, suddenly appearing to perform while a hundred dancers descend on the street to execute a highly-choreographed number into which they pull the awestruck Jennifer. Now THAT's an alternate universe I can enjoy. The only name actors in it are Gary Daniels, an English martial arts performer known to me from FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (1995) and THE EXPENDABLES (2010), who plays Jennifer's father, and David Winters, renowned for playing A-rab, one of the Jets in WEST SIDE STORY (1961). Winters also co-wrote, produced and directed the film. He appears as an elderly hotel resident who reveals his dance background to the young leads at a crucial moment and offers his assistance as they prepare for the dance contest. At one point, Ken, the dishwasher, looks up Winters' character on the computer and finds an old dance clip of his from a TV show from decades ago. I wish I knew where that clip is from. Winters dedicates the film to Sadie Winters, presumably his mother, "who is up there dancing with the angels," and to Gene Kelly, the legendary Hollywood musical star, who inspired him to take up dance. I saw the film at a 42nd Street multiplex on a weekday afternoon knowing very little about it beforehand. As far as I know, it didn't even get reviewed. I was the only one in the theater. I attended an advance screening of SPECTRE at the same theater later that day, packed with people, and I can assure you I had more fun with DANCIN' IT'S ON than I did with SPECTRE. As of this writing, I'm the only one I know who's even heard of this film, let alone seen it. This has all the makings of a cult film, but it needs a way to find its cult. If any film qualifies to be this generation's BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, it's this one.

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• Bad acting

  zaineegirl2017-04-20

  This is a very...interesting movie, to say the least. The only reason I made it to the end was because I liked the storyline and the dancing. Other than that this wasn't a very good movie. The acting seemed very forced and robotic. It was like the actors were afraid to act. A lot of them seemed really stiff, as if they weren't aloud to move anything but their mouth. The way they said their lines was so unrealistic. They were just reciting the words from their script. They weren't engaging with their characters. The camera work in this movie was extremely amateurish and choppy. This contributed to a movie that didn't flow well. There was also issues with shallow depths of field (only a small area in focus) and shots that were too sharp. The whole thing reminded me of a soap opera, with everything being very sharp and clean. I think the music in this movie was exceptional. Every time there was music it fit the mood very well. A lot of upbeat music that had a real coastal vibe. One scene that comes off as very stupid is when Ken is dancing around because he's mad at Jennifer. I think this scene displayed his inner feelings. I see it as more of a metaphor than a literal anger driven dance through a hotel's property. That's my opinion. Actually, I think the whole movie portrays the idea of "dancing what you feel"

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• Not Great...

  tiffleah2016-09-07

  I was so excited to watch this movie because Witney Carson is one of my favorite dance pros. I was curious to see how this movie would be because I wasn't sure that she had any acting chops. Well, I can't blame this movie on her. She has some serious dance talent, but the script was so poorly written in my opinion, that no one even had a chance. The dance scenes were your typical run of the mill dance movie scenes, and the dialogue was almost uncomfortable to watch. The story didn't flow very well either. It was so choppy. Hard to follow. At one time the father is trying to keep his daughter away from the dishwasher by getting her to date the head bell boy, and they within a few minutes he accepts it like nothing was ever said between them. Very strange story and hard to follow. The two positive things I can say though were that the dance scenes were colorful and cheerful, and even though Witney didn't need any exposure because she is so popular already due to DWTS, it gets the casts names out there for other potential roles.

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