Mini-Review: Duane Adler’s Make Your Move (2013) Makes No Sense (Whatsoever)
Donny (Derek Hough) is a New Orleans dancer out on parole. One day a friend shows him a videoclip of his brother Nick’s (Wesley Jonathan) club in Brooklyn. Without thinking twice about it he consciously breaks parole and flies to New York (don’t ask me with what money, because he hasn’t any). Once he gets there he starts all kinds of trouble, mostly because of this hot Korean dancer Aya (BoA) he doesn’t even know, but happens to be the sister of Nick’s rival club owner/ex-BFF Kaz (Will Yun Lee).
If the generic premise sounds familiar, it’s because Make Your Move is yet another Romeo and Juliet ripoff. Breaking and entering with SUVs, uploading videos of random club shootings on YouTube, tap-dancing in the dust and more crazy shit (believe it or not). Did I mention that there’s also some disgusting casual racism? Not one single plot point makes sense. I’ll try my best to find something good to say about this film, no they’re not paying me to do that. The dances are fun to watch, although the ones that are supposed to be improvised are utterly unbelievable.
I guess that if you like cheesy romances or the Step Up movies and Save the Last Dance it’s the same guy who wrote those (Duane Adler). Is he an auteur? In a way maybe. I did enjoy Save the Last Dance even though it’s practically the same thing (minus the racism, if I remember correctly). If you’re into KPOP you’ll recognize Yunho (from TVXQ) in a brief cameo appearance, I didn’t I looked him up. What else is there to say? I did like that they cast a South Korean actress with an actress, this is a Korean film (CJ Entertainment), though it clearly feels American.
In fact aside from a couple lines of dialogue there’s not much else in terms of Korean. Okay, maybe one arm-grab, but that’s it seriously. Derek Hough might be the nicest guy in real life, but is largely uncharismatic as the lead of the film. There’s a laughable attempt at social commentary, with the villain of the film being a Wall Street stock trader. Aside from BoA, a couple cool dubstep(-ish) songs and nice dance choreographies there’s not a lot to enjoy. Save your money, time and energy and watch a real South Korean film.
On the other hand if you want to make fun of this film, like me, and you need something completely ridiculous to distract you this is (almost) perfect (again expect for the racism). It’s hard to completely dislike or hate a film like this, because of its energy, the catchy tunes and the dancing. Expect no character development, profound message or groundbreaking technical achievements though. While Gregory Middleton’s cinematography truly shines in some scenes, they’re few and far in between, speaking once again to the films inconsistent quality.
5 out of 10
black is white 
I have seen the trailer and it didn’t really look promising… at all unfortunately. And I am not exactly surprised to read the racism part to be honest.
Are they only bringing the movie to the US and South Korea or is it going to prémiere all over the world?
I might give this a chance because of BoA I guess. (?)
The film will open on April 17th in South Korea and April 18th in the US. It looks like it opened in a lot of the other major markets according to IMDb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1828959/releaseinfo
BoA is truly the best thing about the film! I guess it’s also fairly entertaining, but yeah, not much else..
Thank you! Germany is not on the list but that’s ok I am obviously not missing much 😀
This sounds like one to avoid Davide!
Indeed! 😀 Sometimes though it’s almost so bad it’s good, so I can’t hate it completely..
yikes! this sounds awful! I avoided Step Up like the plague, so I can’t imagine how bad this must be.
Avoid like the plague part II 🙂 I have a soft spot for cheesy films, that are committed to being cheesy, but I can’t tell how seriously this guy takes himself or his work.