When you watch any of the X-Factor or Britain’s Got Talent you can see about 60% of the contestants has some talent, some great, some ok but they all have one thing in common they are also very generic. As a manager from an old job used to preach “we all sing from the same hymn sheet” and even if you’re a better dancer, musician or simply a better all round performer than your fellow contestant you all will sing the one song or dance like a particular group, very repetitive very boring too. When it comes to dance based films the golden age of cinema up to the 1950’s dance/musicals were the rage then 1960/1970’s it was flower power inspired, in the 1980’s it was the dramatic, fun funky Footloose, Flashdance then now we’ve had Fame, Step Up 3D, Street dance plus a million other copycat flicks and this one Honey 2 very predictable, cliched dross.

Honey 2 stars Katerina Graham as Maria just released from juvenile prison, a street dancer who is released early and put on paroled by none other than Connie Daniels the Mother of Honey (Lonette McKee, the only link to the first film).Connie runs the Honey Studios which is in dire need of a caretaker Maria takes up the role in an effort to keep her nose clean, out of trouble but that doesn’t last long when Luis (Christopher ‘War’ Martinez) her ex-boyfriend rears his ugly head wanting Maria to rejoin the 718 crew the current kings of street dance but after several attempts by Luis (who happened to be the reason why Maria ended up behind bars) Maria rejects his offers.

Within the studio Maria works there happens to be a ‘squeaky clean’ crew High Def which consists of spoilt rich kid Brandon (Randy Wayne), Tina (Seychelle Gabriel), Lyric (Brittany Perry-Russell) and Carla (Melissa Molinaro), crying out for a choreographer and leader to lead them to win the ultimate prize of best street dancer on the nation’s top tv dance competition. So can Maria lead High Def to victory? A victory against the reigning champions who just happen to be 718 Crew!

I haven’t see the first film which launched Jessica Alba’s film career but searching around the internet reading film magazine there is a general consensus that Honey and Honey 2 there is a considerable gap in quality, that’s not saying Honey 1 was a good film just sounded a lot more entertaining. In the words of the Bon Jovi song “You give love a bad name”, Honey 2 gives cliches a bad name as this film has every bad cliché you can think under one roof. The dialogue is so awful you just can’t stop laughing at every sentence coming out of the actors mouths, from Brandon’s spoilt rich kid dancing to defy his strict filthy rich conservative father, Tina & Lyric dancing to get medicine for their sick grandmother and the best of the bunch Maria’s parents died in a car crash making us not just laugh but cringe at the same time. The first few minutes we have the embarrassing dance off in prison with Maria and her prison buddies’, not the start you want when you’re trying to impress the unimpressed, would have been better off having MC Hammer giving it ‘Hammer Time’ and you may have had a few more people interested in the film!

On a positive note, Graham does actually give a respectable performance despite the cliched dialogue and even with the poor film a big shout out goes to the dance crews for their energy and performance. If only the film had a decent story which kept us interested in between the dances, but I would have loved to have seen other dance forms been integrated into the dance off making it feel more interesting and this is where some of Honey 2 competitors shine.

If you love dance films and your life revolves around watching X-factor, Britain’s got talent or enjoy watching dance crews like Diversity Honey 2 will be right up your street and will probably score around 3/5 mark.If you don’t like those sort of films you’ll feel like Simon Cowell sitting at one of those television programmes auditions with your head in your hands wondering why I’m watching this dross

★ | Paul Devine

Music,Drama | USA, 2011 | PG | 24th October 2011 (UK) Dir: Bille Woodruff |Kat Graham, Lonette McKee, Christopher ‘War’ Martinez

Originally Posted At The Peoples Movies | 24th October 2011