Rutina Wesley plays the movie's focus, the talented dancer Raya. (Photos provided by Paramount Vantage)

'How She Move' follows clumsy dance/drama pattern

The urban music/dance drama "How She Move" falls somewhere between "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo" (howl8ingly bad) and "Drumline" (a fun crowd-pleaser) in the prolific genre.

If you've seen any of those movies -- or, say, "Step Up," "Lambada" or the granddaddy of the genre, "Saturday Night Fever"-- you'll know exactly where "How She Move" is going every gyrating hip and dance move along the way.

The basic plot of the genre: A struggling city dweller uses the power of dance (or musical skill) to overcome obstacles in his or her life. Along the way, life lessons are learned, usually centered on the importance of teamwork or staying true to oneself.

In "How She Move," you can almost hear the cliches tick off on the screenwriter's checklist as the movie lumbers along.

Set in Toronto, the movie tells the story of Raya (Rutina Wesley), the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. Besides being an excellent student, Raya is also a talented step dancer.

(For the uninitiated, stepping is a form of dance that combines spoken word, props and stunts. Step dance teams have been popular with black American college sororities and fraternities since the early 20th century.)

As the plot opens, Raya has to leave the expensive private school she attends after the drug overdose of her older sister. Raya's goal is to raise the $20,000 for tuition by winning a step-dance contest. The problem: Raya's mother (Melanie Nicholls-King) disapproves of stepping, thinking it led to her older daughter's drug problems.

Keeping her plan from her mother, Raya decides to join a step-dance group led by Bishop (Dwain Murphy, who looks like a young Laurence Fishburne), a childhood friend. This leads to a conflict with another childhood friend, Michelle (Tre Armstrong), who has the hots for Bishop.

Of course, Michelle and Raya clash. Michelle accuses Raya of thinking she's better then everyone because she wants to attend a private school.

Will Michelle and Raya find common ground? Will a love-hate relationship develop between Bishop and Raya? Will Raya's mom learn to trust her daughter and be proud of her dancing skill? And will Raya's team win the dance contest?

The answer to all these questions is fairly obvious. What saves the movie from complete failure is its appealing cast and a couple of fun dance numbers.

Wesley and Murphy do generate some nice onscreen chemistry together. And the supporting characters, especially Brennan Gademans as Bishop's younger brother, are appealing as well.

Good, too, are some of the dance numbers. Director Ian Iqbal Rashid captures the energy and creativity of stepping. Unfortunately, Rashid films some of those numbers with "Flashdance"-style editing and lots of extreme close-ups. That technique takes away from the appeal -- dancers working together -- of stepping, though.

So, bottom line: Skip "How She Move," a dance movie that just doesn't have the right moves.

By James Ward / Visalia (Calif.) Times-Delta