Step Up

A troubled youth (Channing Tatum) thoughtlessly vandalizes a performing-arts high school and is sentenced to community service cleaning the place up. Soon, his hip-hop moves attract the attention of a dance student (Jenna Dewan) who’s looking for a new partner for her upcoming senior recital. The script by Duane Adler and Melissa Rosenberg is an uninspired rehash of Adler’s Save the Last Dance (which wasn’t terribly original to begin with), only this time with less-charismatic leads. Dewan and Tatum are attractive and likeable (though Tatum overdoes the brooding James Dean bit), but they’re not ready to carry a story so excruciatingly familiar. As the school principal, Rachel Griffiths (who has more talent in her little finger than the rest of the cast put together) is completely wasted.