Lifestyles

iRate: Netflix’s ‘Work It’ struggles to find its dancing shoes

By Jason Guyer
By Jason Guyer

The mediocre movie — or what I would like to call the Netflix special.

Yes, Netflix has put out a couple decent films like “Extraction” but that is not the type of product it always puts out. In fact, the most common Netflix movie is merely average or the “one-off.” To go even further, Netflix has an affinity for the teen film. Some are worth the effort and repeated watches like Netflix’s “The Half of It” and others are not.

To be honest, at least for me, teen movies are too cute and too often do not deal with the nitty-gritty of real issues. At least it seems that way more so than those I remember fondly from when I was a teen but there is inherent bias there. Biased or not, the ones I remember fondly are “She’s All That” and “10 Things I Hate About You.”

There was another type of teen movie that gained its fame right around my teen years: the dance film.

Yes, there were a few in the 80s but I would argue those people were adults in films like “Dirty Dancing” and although it may be being too picky but even in “Footloose” he is closer to 18 than teen or tween age.

Then there is the fact that the film is more about censorship and dancing being banned than it is necessarily about the people involved.

However, back to my point, the first real teen dance film was 2000’s “Bring It On.” In this vain, Netflix has released the 2020 version of this, “Work It.”

C stars Sabrina Carpenter and Keiynan Lonsdale play Quin Ackerman and Julliard Pembroke.

The film is about an awkward head of her class student who is looking to achieve perfection in her high school career. But when she lies to try to pad her transcripts, she must accomplish her lie to make it no longer a lie. The lie being that she is a great dancer, so naturally she must join the dance team.

The catch, though, is Quin is not a good dancer. This causes Quin’s nemesis, Julliard, to not allow her to join the dance team.

Now to make her lie become true, Quin must make her own dance team.

Carpenter is the lead and thus “Work It” is undoubtedly her film. It is meant to expressly use the skills of her singing career and she does okay work in an okay film.

“Work It” is no star vehicle and it always feels like Carpenter is working with two left feet. This is not by her own making but by Netflix and this film is not what is going to catapult or keep Carpenter on star status.

Quite frankly, if you are looking for Carpenter’s acting skills to be put on display go see “The Short History of a Long Road.”

It is a far better film for her talent.

This is kind of a weird thing to say about a singer who dances for a living as part of her career but “Work It” is an average film at best.

It has its moments where it feels fun, but it is always forgettable.

There is nothing to set it apart from all the other dance films out there and many of those are much better.

This can be seen best in what is supposed to be the cumulative apex dance scene. It completely lacks luster and I would even go as far as saying it is soft or plays it too safe.

This is insane quite frankly since you have a singer and dance star as the lead.

It would almost be like having Misty Copeland (principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre) cast in a film and all she does is line dance.

Now it is not quite that bad but it sure is close. The better dance scene is a dance off Julliard Pembroke and a character that is not Carpenter’s Quin Ackerman.

Keiynan Lonsdale who plays Julliard Pembroke is great, but his dancing is not always fluid and even in this “better” dance scene there are moments when he looks and feels stiff to the viewer.

Now I feel bad because at least he is not as stiff as another dancer in the film. I mean of all the ways to lose a dance competition that is a real hard one.

It is too bad the rest of the film could not follow suit and keep the dance routines a little harder. Certainly, more complex is not asking much.

The one upside to “Work It” is that it never aims that high anyway. Netflix only wants people to watch and enjoy it.

They really do not care how much you enjoy it.

“Work It is an enjoyable but extremely mediocre and average film and can never really find its dancing shoes.

I had little to no expectations going into it and I got nothing out of it.

It lets me keep my bias towards films I grew up on (because it never had any real chance of topping “Bring it On”) and I don’t think any less (and certainly not more) of the actors involved.

I just hope it does not spawn a bunch of lesser sequels like “Bring It On” did. At least “Bring It started at a high point and worked its way down.

I could not imagine what and how bad sequels to “Work It” would even be.

Then again that is the Netflix special.

IRATE SCORE: 2.5/5

Jason Guyer is an avid moviegoer and works in the graphics department at the Eagle Times. For questions or comments he can be emailed at [email protected].

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