Film Reviews

Honey 2

• Rating:
• Director: Bille Woodruff
• Starring: Katerina Graham
• Details: US/110mins PG

Step Up To The Last Dance? You Got Served Some Footloose? These films are getting so familiar you can almost predict the dance moves. This sequel comes years after the moderately successful Jessica Alba starring original, which itself was like a battering ram of continuous clichés - so not that much has changed. Just like Step Up 2 gave us a new troubled youngster with a tenuous link to the first film, Honey 2 dutifully obliges.
Katerina Graham is reformed scobie Maria Ramirez, a foster child who, y'know, never really had a chance in life; fell in with the wrong crowd, had her parents die etc. But she has a talent, and that talent is busting a move - which she does, frequently. She had a crew, but is now sweeping floors at the dance studio founded by Jessica Alba's Honey as part of her community service for attempted robbery. She finds a new crew, and after some initial tension, they enter a competition that could change their lives.
You could easily look at my review for Step Up 2 or 3 to see what I thought of this film - it's a carbon copy of those sequels. If you are a fan of slickly choreographed dance then you might find something here that floats your boat, but even those other two (also muck) films did it with more style. This is by-the-numbers filmmaking pretty much personified - think The Hills with a slightly grimmer setting and a bassier soundtrack.
Just as I was making that observation, who should randomly pop up but Audrina Patridge - apparently not playing herself from The Hills, or her actual self, God only knows... Regardless, it's equally amusing and ridiculous to see her here.
The biggest complaint I'd have for Honey 2 is that they've just stopped trying. Copying the sequels of other films that were crap to begin with is lazy and an insult to the audience - however young and dance crazy they may be. This could've been a 4 minute long music video and it'd still be rubbish.

Review by Mike Sheridan