I’ll admit it, this movie wasn’t the one I wanted to see. I wanted to watch Center Stage. I wanted Zoe Saldana, Cooper Nielson, the American Ballet Academy, and the “dance the shit out of it” woman.
Somehow, Center Stage isn’t on Netflix, and Feel the Beat was recommended as the closest alternative. It’s not, though. It’s clearly not. It’s a feel-good movie about a struggling Broadway dancer who achieves success when she starts teaching a kids dance class back in her sleepy hometown. This is nothing like Center Stage, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.
The action opens with April (Sofia Carson) rushing to get to an important audition. This is a chance of a leading role on Broadway; it’s what she’s waited her whole life for, so you have to wonder why she didn’t just set off for it earlier. But anyway, she’s in a hurry, and it’s raining, so she steals a taxi from an old lady, kills the audition, and then gets to meet Ruth Zimmer – the financial backer of the show and apparently one of the most important people in the industry.
If you haven’t figured out yet that Ruth Zimmer is the old lady who lost her taxi and got left out in the rain then I worry about you and hope you never have children. So, Ruth takes one look at April and declares that she’s off the show and will never work on Broadway again. Harsh, but more importantly, you have to wonder, again, how this dancer who’s dreamed of Broadway stardom since she was a girl could have failed to recognize someone so important. You know what, don’t worry about it, because there’s still one man in showbusiness who doesn’t have to listen to Ruth Zimmer, who could still give April her big shot. Yes, you’ve guessed it, it’s Welly Wong…
If it helps, it’s short for Wellington.
Also, he’s played by Rex Lee (Lloyd from Entourage), and that definitely helps.
With no way of meeting Wong, though, April decides to go back to small town Wisconsin and start eating cheese. Seriously, more than once, to cope with disappointment, she’s pictured devouring entire blocks of cheese. I know it’s Wisconsin and it’s the cheese state, but that’s not a strong enough premise to have an elite dancer gobble up cheese like she’s dreaming of a heart disease.
Moving on… She soon runs into her old boyfriend (who she dumped by text and who she’s obviously going to get back together with before the end of the film) and dance teacher Miss Barb, who takes her back to her old school. April agree to help the kids prepare for a dance competition, but only when she realizes that the national finals will be judged by the living legend that is Welly Wong.
It’s here that the movie really begins and April starts to blossom from an aggressively selfish woman with a cheese fixation into the caring and inspirational figure she should have always been. Sure, she helps the kids learn how to feel the beat of the music, but they also help her to feel the beat of her heart. Well, until Welly sees her perform, offers her a job, and she leaves the kids before the final without even saying goodbye.
It’s brutal, but this is a dance movie, so at some point, the leader has to find a reason to walk away from their crew before coming back, saying sorry, being forgiven way too easily, and then winning the competition… And I’ve just given away the end of the movie. Yeah, you would never have guessed it, but the kids win. Go figure.
OK, there’s a LOT that’s bad about this movie: it’s predictable, there are multiple plot points that are introduced and then never followed up on, there things that don’t make sense, and there’s just the script in general. That’s not important, though, because where this film’s good, it’s really good. It made me laugh, it nearly nearly made me cry – it’s a genuinely heartfelt, uplifting movie. The kids are fantastic, and when you see them take center stage and dance the shit out of it, you’ll be happy you were recommended this movie. ☆☆☆☆
hooked on shit movies 