labsjoao Reviews

Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)

Atrocious acting mixed with thin plot and countless clichés...

[1/10 · 15 February 2008]

I can not begin to describe how awful this movie was. Even worse than its predecessor, Step Up 2 manages to be even more predictable. I knew exactly what was going to happen from the first ten minutes. The script was ridiculous. The story could not have been more cliché. The movie tries to have many subplots but it fails to achieve an enjoyable storyline. The movie paints a very unrealistic college and street dancing life, and that is fine, but the problem is that this movie tries too hard to make it seem real.

They attempted to throw some humor in this god awful hideous picture when they portray an Asian foreign student and ridicule her for her accent and lack of correct English language. There was some cool dancing but honestly, it wasn't nearly enough to save this movie. The low rating says it all.

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (2006)

Good, but disappointing.

[6/10 · 11 October 2007]

"O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias" is the most important Brazilian export of 2007, and as many said, a strong contender for the Academy Awards. The movie was beautiful: the cinematography, the music, the actors. The scenery was perfectly created and it looked perfectly like São Paulo and Brazil in the 1970's. With all that, the movie still failed to excite me or create any major emotion. The movie was very flat, and ran without a climax. Plus I wasn't very familiar with the 70's history, and the fact that the movie doesn't go deeper into the issues of the time got me a bit confused. I recommend a little researching prior to watching the movie. Overall, the movie was OK, but the characterization should have been developed further and some kind of bigger conflict should have brought excitement to the movie.