Just finished watching Stomp the Yard, courtesy of my brother's friend who had the video. The dance moves are snazzy and very cool, but the storyline left me highly disappointed.

During the beginning, where everything was just so hardcore and fierce and downright angry, and the moves kept me wanting more, as the dancers gyrate their way through, parting the crowd, feeling each other up and howling away. Then we shifted from the gunshot to this college thing.

The stepping dances were definitely a downer after all the excitement at the hip hop dance competition. In fact, I kind of rolled my eyes, waiting for our main guy, DJ [cliche-ish name anyway] to step up literally and show them a thing or two. My wait wasn't long, though he has to go around making moon eyes at some girl... gee, we mustn't forget our main girl April, or else there wouldn't be any catalyst to this predictable plot. So our April happens to be the girlfriend of this 'important' guy Grant in this fraternity Gamma whose mascot happens to be a wolf, so the frat basically dances around and howls at appropriate moments. On the opposite team is Theta, and its mascot is the python, hence they have to imitate the python thing with their arms and all that.

So, as predicted, DJ gets into trouble because of April and issues after issues spring up. In the end, he joins Theta and they move towards the National Stepping Competition. Or something like that. Then because of April again, DJ's nasty past got spilled and he was suspended so he couldn't compete. After some unimportant yakking, we see how April steps up to her father and gets DJ back into the game.

Blah blah blah, and we have the awesome dances with all sorts of special effects, nimble footwork and more howling from guys and girls, mostly from Gamma, the 7 times champion. Luckily, DJ gets back in the nick of time when both Gamma and Theta are at an impasse having a final showdown to end the draw.

Grant then shows off his solo dance, but [gasp!] it appears to be a copy of DJ's dance when he was practising on his own. DJ, not to be beaten, counters with the exact same dance, but at the end, he brings out his dead brother's gloves and executed his special move and promptly KO his opponent. Okay, fine, so he makes this final cool move and the crowd goes wild. And he scores! Yeah, like didn't you already expected it? Theta wins for once and the guy gets the girl. And they all probably lived happily ever after.

Yawn. With the exception of the to-kill-for dance moves and hot bods, Stomp the Yard would hardly be watchable because of the lame plot. Seriously, we need more storyline. Oh shucks that, Stomp the Yard has shown that even without some fancy plot, it's still keeps you at the edge of your seat thanks to the wonderful dancing. Man, they had better pay the choreographer and dance instructors more for spicing up the movie for them. The beginning had a really strong dark feel but it was totally smashed by the switch over to the school grounds.

And under the twilight sky the sound of a single gunshot rang true and clear, like the breaking of glass. And crimson, like the orange sky sprayed across my vision smearing pure white, tainting it, destroying it. And just like that, a last look and eyes fluttered close and the hand once holding onto mine fell limply away, never to clutch at me again. And all I wanted then was to scream, but there wasn't any sound, none that I could produce as the blood continued to seep and stained us all. And just like that, he was gone. Gone like the wind in the trees, gone from me...

Just something random that I came up with as I watched Duron's death. Kind of anticlimatic, the above paragraph might not be exact cos I don't exactly remember everything in the scene. My memory's not that good.

Labels: movie