If you've see Step Up and Step Up 2, then you're going to recognize a couple of our main characters. Moose (Adam G. Sevani) and Camille (Alyson Stoner) are off to college at NYU and both have decided to give up dance and live in the real world. For Camille, this isn't a problem, but Moose can't live without dance. The first day that he is there, Moose runs into more dancers in Central Park. Unknowingly, he ends up in a dance battle with a crew called the Samurai. He's rescued from the cops by another dancer, Luke (Rick Malambri). Luke convices Moose to join his crew, the Pirates. After Moose joins, Luke recruits Natalie (Sharni Vinson), partially because he loves her dancing and partially because he likes her looks. These three plus the rest of their crew including Jason (Stephen "tWitch" Boss) and the Santiago Twins (Martin and Facundo Lombard) need to get ready for the big dance competition, the World Jam. They have to win it to save the club that they work and live in. To get there, they have to first win two other "qualifying" competitions. Their main competition in the World Jam are the Scorpions, who are led by an ex-crewmate of theirs, Julian (Joe Slaughter).
So let's face it, dance movies don't have the most original plot. I realize that this story sounds pretty much the same as the previous ones. When you watch it, you'll realize how many more elements are similar that I'm leaving out so as not to ruin the story for you. But how many of us watch dance movies for the plotline anyway? The real reason we watch dance movies is for the dancing, and Step Up 3 has the most and the best dancing by far! Just pull up the full cast list on IMDb.com and you'll be scrolling down for quite a while. You should recognize quite a few of those names from previous dance films and So You Think You Can Dance. Of course, with choreography by such amazing dancers including Dave Scott, Jamal Sims, and others, you know the dancing is going to be amazing. All of the dancing is hip-hop or break dancing. You won't get any of the ballet or other styles that you saw in previous movies, but really, I didn't miss it. The routines are more organized than before and much larger and longer.
As you may know, Step Up 3 was originally in 3D in the theaters. I always worry that this will leave scenes that look silly when translated to 2D because they were put in there just to take advantage of the 3D effects. Luckily, the only scene that you could tell they shot from that angle just to take advantage of the 3D still looked fine in 2D, so I have no complaints about the way the film looks in 2D.
The combo pack comes with both Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film. As is typical, there are more features available on the Blu-ray, simply because there is more room for them. The Blu-ray has deleted scenes (which are pretty much all more dance scenes) and you get the full "Born from a Boombox: A Luke Katcher Film" that you only get to see pieces of in the movie. Extra bonus features aside, the Blu-ray version simply looks better. I played both versions in my PS3 so it was the same player, but the Blu-ray is much crisper. It just appears to pop off the screen more. You're going to want to watch the Blu-ray version for sure! Also, the audio is English 7.1 DTS-HD for the Blu-ray whereas the DVD is only Dolby Digital 5.1.
If you're a fan of dance shows or movies, I highly recommend that you pick up Step Up 3 today! I personally think it's the best one in the series yet.
