Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) is a foster kid who is stealing cars with his boys. One night, he breaks into an arts school and causes some vandalism. He gets caught and is sentenced to 200 hours of community service at the arts school. Director Gordon (Rachel Griffiths) runs the school. Nora Clark (Jenna Dewan) loses his dance partner with a sprain ankle and she pairs up with Tyler to practice for her big dance.

The story is cheesy and simplistic but it has some hokey charm to it. The acting is all about Channing Tatum. He's got the arrogant charm of the lead character. Jeanna Dewan has a bit of vulnerability but not quite as compelling. For a dance movie, it has just enough goodness to embrace.

In looking over the reviews of Step Up I saw comparisons to Flashdance, Save the Last Dance for Me, and a few others. The pithy review that Step Up got in my hometown free paper Art Voice remarked that the film had some nerve to advertise it had an original screenplay. Personally I like to think of it as Eminem meets Fame. The only thing missing was Debbie Allen doing the choreography.

Lead Channing Tatum in this film is a kind of an Eminem light. He's a kid being raised in a foster home in Baltimore and he's been busted for breaking in and trashing the Maryland School of Arts. As punishment he gets to do janitorial service at that same school.

Channing's got some moves though and he hooks up with a girl from the right side of the tracks, Jenna Dewan, who needs a rehearsal partner.

If you've seen all the films mentioned above you've got a pretty good idea what follows. If the film is hardly original, it doesn't mean that it's bad. Both the leads have some real moves on the dance floor and as Tatum regrettably remarked, he found out that dancing can indeed be like rocket science.

Channing Tatum pulls out all of the stops playing the world's oldest living high school senior and dance prodigy in Step Up.

Tyler (Tatum)is the pretty white boy living in a rough,black Baltimore neighborhood. When he's not car jacking with his home boys, he is busy popping moves and busting bad ass dance routines on the b ball court.

Then one night, after having a gun pulled on him at a party, Tyler and crew break in to the oddly located Maryland Academy of the Arts. The boys proceed to crap all over the drama departments Caligula set when they get busted by a rent a cop.

Tyler takes the fall, letting his buddies make a run for it, he ends up in court facing serious court ordered community service at, you guessed it, the Maryland Academy of the Arts.

We also learn that our boy Tyler has a lengthy police record and is the world's oldest foster child. Anyway, back at the school, Tyler is amazed when he arrives and sees all of these other kids pursuing their dreams and actually being productive members of society.

Given the job as mop boy, he mumbles his way through the first few days of his service when, you guessed it, he sees the school's top female dancer and its love at first site.

It's at this point you can turn off the movie and imagine the remaining time in your head.

Boy and girl end up dance partners, montage, montage, montage, no one understands, they don't communicate, he learns to control his dancing while she becomes more of a free spirit. Her mom thinks Tyler is white trash. His foster parents could give a crap. His friends freak when they find out he is at school dancing in tights instead of carjacking with them, oh the humanity!

There is also this second tier romance between a DJ from the school and star dancer's best friend, but I digress. In the end Tyler and star dancer pop and lock their way to winning the schools big talent showcase, he of course gets accepted into the school and star dancer gets her bring break with a dance troupe!

This movie rips off everything from every dance movie ever made before it. Throw in some embarrassing fashions, dialogue and dance numbers and you have Body Rock, Breakin and Flashdance all rolled into one phoned in production.