The producer Dante Graham (Laz Alonso) promotes a group of b-boys expecting to bring the Battle of the Year Trophy back to the USA that have not won it in fifteen years. He hires his friend and former basketball couch Jason Blake (Josh Holloway) that grieves the loss of his wife and son to prepare his team. Blake fires the whole team since they do not have motivation and decides to select a new group of dancers under the nickname of Dream Team. He also hires the youngster Franklyn (Josh Peck) and the choreographer of break-dance Stacy (Lotz Caity) to help him. Along the months, Blake tries to implement teamwork and works hard with the group. In the competition in France, he has a great surprise.

"Battle of the Year" is a disappointing and predictable collection of clichés. It is amazing how many times this storyline has been used in different environments and sports ("decadent couch hires a team of losers that in the end surprises in a competition") with a corny message in the end. Fans of break-dance and hip-hop may enjoy a little more but this movie is terrible. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Batalha do Ano" ("Battle of the Year")

Like the America's Cup, the best B-Boy artists are foreigners. Oh the humiliation! Dante (Laz Alonso) enlists Blake (Josh Holloway) a washed up basketball coach to run the team because Walter Matthau and Burgess Meredith are dead and Tom Hanks is too expensive. Dante laments as he entices Blake, "How long before hip-hop isn't cool?" Clearly this film isn't for me because I never thought hip-hop was cool in the first place.

Blake assembles a new group and places them in a boot camp atmosphere to build team work. We really need to punch the next person who says "There is no "I" in team." The group must overcome the expected internal conflict which bored me to tears. Caity Lotz plays Stacy, a late coming choreographer, supplies the film with token eye candy as she reads her two lines or so.

Parental Guide: I didn't recall any F-bombs, I won't say they aren't there. No sex or nudity. Some minor self crotch grabbing.

If you lose your passion for something, you might feel lost. So does our main actor here (you may know him from a TV show called Lost),who has to train a few kids to do something that seems unachievable. Mainly because some of his pupils didn't lose their focus, they didn't have it to begin with.

But the movie does have a story, even though we have a lot of characters that have to fit into the story, you do get a bit of their background and the movie does make sense. The dancing is OK, with some wicked things/stunts being performed. The story is more than decent and is fun to watch. Overall something people who like "battle" movies might very well enjoy