Although I'm not a fan of Hip Hop or Rap music, overall, I quite enjoyed Step Up 3D. It was lively, had likeable characters and of course, the choreography was top notch. As this type of film is aimed squarely at children and teenagers the story is pretty predictable ...couples fall in and out of love and there is some major problem to be overcome with the rival gang before the status quo can be resumed. Also, as is quite usual in this type of musical film, the characters inhabit a Universe far removed from the normal everyday reality that you and I know and so on that front, it is pure escapism. My favourite scene was a Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger's tribute number (all shot in one take) accompanied by a modern recording of "I Won't Dance". It is beautifully shot and choreographed on location in New York and credit must go to the producers for having the nerve to put an old-fashioned dance routine number like this one in such a modern dance movie.
How is the 3D though? Well the key word is "inconsistent". It varies between stunning, demo quality 3D, shallow 3D, suspiciously looking converted scenes to the obligatory 2D moments. All the dance numbers have a very deep 3D and look like they were carefully staged by a professional stereographer. In fact the parallax is so wide in these numbers that the 3D verges on "Hyper stereo" at times, where dancer's limbs stretch out in a too long and unnatural way. Having said that the 3D does look great during these dance numbers. Unfortunately, the dance numbers tend to stand apart from the rest of the movie and only illustrates further how mixed the quality of the rest of the 3D is.(v)
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