Make It Happen

Men and women are completly different no matter what people say. During the opening dance routine of this movie, both my wife and I enjoyed it immensely, noticing the routine's nuances and it's various styles (thank you "So You Think You Can Dance"). I, however, also noticed, that the routine must have been filmed over three days as you could tell Mary Elizabeth Winstead was wearing no less than three different forms of underwear. Attention to detail me, I can assure you.

So, back in the ninties, there was a movie called Coyote Ugly which was essentially about this singer who wanted to make it big, so she travelled to the big smoke, but found her dreams failing and, rather than go back to hicksville and tell her father she hadn't made it, she took a job at a bar where she was forced to do some risque stuff, while meeting a guy who encouraged her dreams. Just as she was about to make it, her father arrived at the bar and was shocked by what he saw, but as she gives up on her dreams, he tells her to follow them and she makes it as a singer.

So substitute dancer for singer, burlesque club for bar and brother for father, and you essentially have the plot for Make It Happen.

Oh did I mention that there was a bitch at the bar who makes it difficult for our heroine? In both versions of course.

So obviously this is a chick flick, and more than that it is a dance movie in the tradition of Step Up and all the others in that field, but although this has some great dancing, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is hot and looks great dancing (although her hair normally is absolutely atrocious and whenever she has it done up it becomes a billion times better), the fact is that this movie doesn't really try as much as it's predecessors and feels very much like a by-the-numbers type of movie.

The highlight of this is at the end where the writer has clearly given up on the script and the bitch throughout the movie suddenly tosses in the line "Oh, sorry for giving you a hard time, I just wanted you to get a feel of what it was like for me."

If I was Mary's character, I would have turned around and punched her in the face for being such a stupid prat.

Chick flick or not, you can always make the effort with what you are doing and this movie simply doesn't. Thank goodness the dancing looks great, but there isn't enough of it to make the movie step up..ho ho ho.

"C+"