T-Rex was right, the British love to boogie, and not just on a Saturday night. For the past two years, the winners of the top-rated ITV1 series Britain’s Got Talent have been dance acts George Sampson and Diversity respectively. BBC One and Sky1 have wooed viewers with rival shows So You Think You Can Dance and Just Dance in addition to old stalwart Strictly Come Dancing, and cinema audiences have got their groove on to Step Up, Stomp The Yard, Make It Happen and Fame. Directors Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini celebrate the inventiveness of UK street dance in Street Dance 3D, the first live action feature film to be shot entirely in 3D outside of America.

A 3D film? Again?

The filmmakers contrive a couple of nice moments in Street Dance 3D with dancers appearing to throw hats at the audience, forcing us to duck for cover. However for the most part, the 3D aspect of the film is redundant and there is little reason to pay a ticket premium to see the film in the eye-popping 3D format.

Street Dance and Ballet? Never the twain…

The painfully simplistic storyline of Street Dance 3D centres on talented street dancer Carly (Nichola Burley), who is head over heels in love with boyfriend Jay (Ukweli Roach). He is the creative energy behind a streetdance crew which includes Carly’s loud mouth best friend Shawna (Teneisha Bonner), Frankie (Bradley Charles), Steph (Steph Nguyen), Aimee (Sacha Chang), Justine (Rhimes Lecointe), Mack (Kofi Agyemang-Prempeh) and Boogie (Lex Milczarek). When Jay unexpectedly announces his departure, a distraught Carly is left to pick up the pieces a few weeks before the finals of the UK Street Dance Championships. Struggling to keep the team together, Carly meets ballet schoolmistress Helena (Charlotte Rampling), who offers the street dancer a rehearsal space for free if she agrees to include five ballet students in the performance. What!? Ballet? And.. street dance? Surely it will never work! Madness we say! Carly and her posse eluctantly welcome Tomas (Richard Winsor), Gabe (Hugo Cortes), Isabella (Rachel McDowall), Chloe (Sinead Gregory) and Bex (Jennifer Leung) into the fold with (not really very) surprising results, both in the dance and romance departments.

StreetDance 3D: Not quite a triple threat

StreetDance 3D is crudely bolted together by some electrifying choreography, showcasing the two different dance styles and the enviable physiques of the good-looking leads. When the cast are in full flow, spinning, popping and locking, or gracefully pirouetting and leaping, we dance merrily to the film’s tune. However, Jane English’s script is perfunctory to say the least and doesn’t even make half-hearted attempts at plausibility. Would a ballet mistress really risk her most talented students on such a folly, and could Carly and co really conjure such intricate, prop-heavy choreography out of thin air?

Some performances are more wooden that the beams used by the dancers to stretch their limbs but those who can’t act, like Winsor, can always rely on their sweat-drenched chests to distract attention from the inexpressiveness of their faces. Rampling rises above it all with a beatific smile on a pair of killer heels which show off her impressive calf muscles. Treat it as simply a platform to show off some great dancing, and a nice showcase for 3D films, and you’ll have a good time.

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