Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Dance Flick Blu-ray Movie Review

Bust a move away from 'Dance Flick.'

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 16, 2009

And now for something completely different:



Announcer: "Dance Flick is on Blu-ray!"



*crickets...*



Announcer: "I said, "'Dance Flick is on Blu-ray!'"



Captain Ramius: "Now they will tremble again -- at the sound of our silence."



Announcer: "Is this thing on?"



"................................................"



The End.



Yeah. Bad movie. Really bad movie. Sorry. I got nothin'.

Punch me. Kick me. Just don't make me watch 'Dance Flick.'

Megan (Shoshana Bush) was once a budding dance prodigy until her mother died a horrible death -- straight out of a Final Destination movie -- while on her way to her daughter's most important recital. Having given up on her dream, Megan relocates to live with her father in a dilapidated apartment in the ghetto. Attending "Musical High School," she meets Charity (Essence Atkins), a young mother that treats her baby like a fashion accessory. Local boy Thomas (Damon Wayans, Jr.) is himself a dancer and Charity's brother. Megan's new life takes her through a plethora of twists and turns as she adapts to life at a new school, enjoys the company of her new friend Charity, falls in and out of love with Thomas, and slowly but surely regains her footing as a dancer.

While one cannot say that Dance Flick lowers the bar for this modern creature, this "thing," that has taken over for what was once the Parody genre, it doesn't do it any favors, either. It's "better" than Meet the Spartans, but that's like saying a bullet through the head is "better" than a knife through the heart. A miserable experience all around, Dance Flick recycles stale ideas that were never fresh to begin with and, in what may be a first for the genre, takes on the new wave of Dance movies that in and of themselves really aren't popular enough or well-known throughout popular culture for the material to be either relevant or accessible to many audience members that might happen to sneak into the theater after watching Star Trek. (Nobody would actually pay to see this, would they? Survey says: YES! Dance Flick earned over $25,000,000 domestic box office gross, beating out actual, real movies like The International and Observe and Report). Even the "creative talent" behind dreck like Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie had the wherewithal to incorporate elements of major blockbusters into their films. Instead of The Day After Tomorrow, 300, or Cloverfield, Dance Flick hedges its bets on... High School Musical? Step Up? Stomp the Yard? As Bill Lumbergh would say, "yeaaaahhhh........" On the plus side of the ledger -- and that's a list that's about as long as a gnat's eyelash -- Dance Flick comes from some of the same people behind Scary Movie, a Parody that represents one of the genre's last bastions of decency before it crumbled and fell to unfathomable depths that seemed impossible in the days of Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and The Naked Gun.

Dance Flick Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dance Flick steps up on Blu-ray with a quality 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer. The movie might be garbage, but the transfer is far from being worthy of the scrap heap. There's little grain to speak of, but the image takes on a consistently strong, colorful, and detailed appearance. It doesn't match or best the absolute finest transfers on the market, but there's nothing overtly wrong with this one, either. Detail impresses both far and wide; even distant objects retain a vibrancy, clarity, and distinction that can make the transfer a pleasure to look at, assuming one can tune out the actual content of what's on-screen. Colors take on a natural appearance that captures the vibrant palette found throughout the movie nicely. From dark blue and purples to bright reds and yellows, this colorful transfer consistently jumps off the screen with eye-pleasing results. With adequate black levels and skin tones, Dance Flick looks just fine, should anyone care to watch it.

Dance Flick Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dance Flick stomps onto Blu-ray with a strong DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Much like the video transfer, this audio mix is far superior to the film and should please those that choose to give this disc a spin. It should come as no surprise that Dance Flick's soundtrack is heavy on the music, and it never disappoints. The track's most noted trait is its use of hard-hitting bass. There's plenty of Hip Hop music that positively blares throughout the movie, and it's accompanied by a chest-rattling level of bass. Aside from the thunderous low end, there's a fine amount of crispness and clarity to the music that, all together, makes for a very good listen. Dance Flick also features a fair amount of atmosphere; club scenes come alive with background information that does well to immerse the listener into the locale. The thudding bass is still present, but it's sufficiently lessened to allow dialogue to play through with the same level of clarity that's to be found throughout the film.

Dance Flick Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Dance Flick features a few scattered extras. Dance Dance Dance! With the Wayans Wayans Wayans! (1080p, 21:10) is a standard behind-the-scenes piece that looks at why the movie is timely in its take on the modern Dance genre. It looks at the films it lampoons, the dance choreography, the strengths of the various cast members, the story behind each of the main characters, and more. The piece is assembled with the usual array of cast and crew interview clips, behind-the-scenes footage, and segments from the film. Dancing Outtakes (1080p, 2:26) features some dance footage that's absent the "comedy" that accompanies such scenes in the film. Also included are five deleted scenes (1080p, 8:16) and the film's theatrical trailer (1080p, 2:27).

Dance Flick Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

No wonder Paramount chose not to promote Dance Flick via the online Blu-ray community. The disc itself is sound enough -- it features satisfactory video and audio presentations and a couple of extras -- but the movie is absolutely abysmal despite a few scattered yet cheap laughs. This recent wave of "Parody" movies gives the genre a bad name, and Dance Flick comes dangerously close to sinking it even further thanks to its take on movies that aren't exactly ingrained into the movie-going public's conscience, making the job of lampooning them all the more difficult. What's next, a parody of direct-to-video action duds? Shoot, that might even work better than this. By any reasonable measure, Dance Flick is a putrid motion picture. Boogie, jig, waltz, tango, hustle, tap, or two-step away from this one. Fast.