Movie review: 'Step Up' is a step down

This sequel to 2006's "Step Up" opens with a startling piece of guerilla theater on a subway train. It ends with a rain-soaked dance number that looks like an outtake from "Night of the Living Dead: The Musical." Sandwiched between these unusual sequences are a lot of familiar ingredients.

Aside from a cameo by original star Channing Tatum, "Step Up 2" starts over with a new cast, if not a particularly new premise. Sixteen-year-old Andie (Briana Evigan) is a dancer with the 410, an underground hip-hop dance crew that performs on the streets of Baltimore.

Rehearsals often take priority over classes for Andie, and she is forced to enroll in the Maryland School of the Arts to study dance. This doesn't sit well with her partners in the 410, who dismiss her from the crew. Andie retaliates by assembling her own crew of misfits from her new school. Can they win the city's biggest dance battle, The Streets?

The filmmakers hardly miss a cliché along the way, which wouldn't be so bad if the dance sequences were more convincing. *

Produced by Erik Feig, Jennifer Gibgot, Adam Shankman and Patrick Wachsberger, directed by John Chu, written by Toni Ann Johnson and Karen Barna, music by Aaron Zigman, distributed by Walt Disney.