Delayed Reaction: Work It

Premise: Step Up meets She's All That.

 

I guess I'm just not growing out of the teen movie phase. Put a bunch of pretty 20-somethings playing teens in a movie with a hint of edginess and I'm on board. Apparently, that's just always going to be true for me. Netflix has been doing god's work, making these movies when major studios have largely (and rightfully*) abandoned them.

 

*Look, I'm sad to see them go, but I understand the financial structure that made that undesirable for theaters.

 

Work It is a mash up of virtually everything we like from past teen movies. It's got the dancing of Step Up (which is name-checked), the rag-tag team-building of Bring It On, and the attractive lead who is supposed to be a nerd of She's All That. There's even a nice Fast Times at Ridgemont High homage. Seriously, if you are a fan of the Can't Hardly Waits, She's The Mans, and Can't Buy Me Loves of the past, the only thing different is how old you are. Pretty much everyone in the cast has a Disney Channel or Nickelodeon show or movie in their filmography. Some have Broadway experience or pop albums. I don't really care that no one is high-school aged because they are consistently-aged. That's the thing about high-school movies. The cast doesn't all have to be teens for it to work. They just all need to look the same age. Because there's a very real difference between a young-looking 26-year-old and an actual 18-year-old.

 

There's also the whole thing where I'm supposed to buy Sabrina Carpentar as a nerd who can't dance. They didn't even try the old glasses trick with her. Instead, they just put her in sweaters. It was fascinating watching her dance poorly early on, because she still had too much rhythm. It's similar to the difference between an actual fall and a prat-fall. You can just tell. It was then really satisfying when they finally let her dance to her ability.

 

Overall, the movie was funny and short with a solid cast and pretty good dancing. My only complaints were Duke-related.

 

First of all, why did it need to be Duke that she wanted to go to? I appreciate the attempt to choose a non-Ivy League school for a change. Couldn't it be Vanderbilt or Stanford though? It's really hard for me to root for a character to win so she can go to Duke. Really, the big success of the movie is that she's tempted to go to NYU instead at the end.

 

Second, she mentions fond memories of going to Duke football games. I'm sorry. No one has fond memories of going to Duke football games. If you got to anything Duke, it's a basketball game. That's how you know the people making Work It just pulled Duke out of a pile of names. Otherwise, they would've changed that line. Which leads me again to ask "why Duke?"

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend