How She Move (2008)

O Masterpiece
O Excellent
O Rental
O OK
X Mediocrity
O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / January 29, 2008

“How She Move” is the latest movie to feature “step dancing” (but not verb conjugation), and I have a feeling it won’t be the last.

For those who aren’t familiar with step dancing, it appears to be an energetic blend of hip hop, break dancing, cheerleading, gymnastics and stomping around rhythmically. In fact, “stomp dancing” would be a more accurate name; but in any case, step dancing is fast, intense and usually entertaining to watch.

But “How She Move” is merely a poor retread of last year’s better step-dance movie, “Stomp the Yard,” except our new protagonist is female. All in all, they’re both the same movie, even down to the death-of-a-sibling inciting incident.

Raya Green (Rutina Wesley) lives in the inner city (somewhere within close driving distance to Detroit). Determined to rise up out of the hopelessness of her rough neighborhood, Raya excels academically at a private school with high hopes of attending medical school in the future.

When Raya’s sister dies from drug addiction, she’s compelled to leave her studies and return home, forced to face the problems she was trying to elude. One such issue is her family’s poverty, which poses a problem when it comes to paying for med school.

But Raya is a dancer, as was her sister, and it appears they always have been. Step dancing seems to be the competitive entertainment of choice among the primarily Jamaican inhabitants of her community. And if a dancing crew can step well enough, there’s money to be won at local step competitions.

So, you can see where this is going. In fact, “How She Move” is more predictable than the sunrise. Yes, Raya has to struggle with getting involved again in stepping (and its unsavory associates) in order to compete at the big dance contest in Detroit called the Step Monster Competition.

“How She Move” has some impressive dancing (which I, admittedly, could never physically imitate), but even so, I’ve seen better.

I’ve read complaints online about the music that the dancers step to. Step dancing in and of itself produces percussive sounds (or “music,” I suppose), so some would argue that no accompanying soundtrack is necessary. “Stomp the Yard” and its sparse soundtrack seems more like cheerleading than dancing to me, so I actually prefer the musical backdrop of “How She Move.” Besides, the percussive stomping is plenty audible amid the music.

Overall, “How She Move” is rather unremarkable, unmemorable, unoriginal and probably not worth your time simply because you’ve already seen this movie before, several times. Here we have rental-worthy dancers stuck in a mediocre screenplay.

Directed by Ian Iqbal Rashid
Rutina Wesley / Dwain Murphy / Brennan Gademans
Drama 94 min.
MPAA: PG-13 (for some drug content, suggestive material and language)

U.S. Release Date: January 25, 2008
Copyright 2008: 227