Battle of the Year  (2013)    3/100

Rating :   3/100                                                                       110 Min        12

Anything with a bombastic title like this had better have something special going on, hiring popstar Chris Brown to play the principal lead certainly counts as ‘special’. For anyone who isn’t aware – Brown is the ex-boyfriend of Rihanna (unless they got back together – who cares) ever since he punched her in the face, or was that how they met each other, I can never remember.

One can imagine his reaction to the news that his ex lover was to appear in last year’s ‘Battleship’ – “Say what! Who dat bitch think she is?! Yo, get my knuckle-dusters, wait, hell no I’ll show dat hoe – I’m gonna get me one of dem Oscars! That right! That bling is dope yo!!” I have no idea if Chris Brown talks like this, but I’m pretty sure he’s a spoilt little fucknut so why exactly are cinema audiences being subjected to him?

Why indeed. The title of this film refers to the battle of the streetdancing b-boys scenario that forms the focus of the story where a bunch of barely literate hoodlums will become exalted beings at one with each other and the cosmos by jumping up and down, swinging their arms around, and spinning on their heads in a literal inversion of the use of their brain. I actually enjoyed the likes of the Step Up and Streetdance franchises, but this is just terrible, replete with spirit crushing bad dialogue (including anti-semitic lines), woeful acting, and to crown it all, for the most part uninteresting and unskilled dancing – all brought home with terrible editing.

I think it’s actually the scene pictured above where Brown leaps backward, but lands way off centre. Hopeless. Somehow Josh Holloway, as the retired basketball coach talked into taking on the American ‘Dream Team’, manages to eventually pull off the role as he takes them to the world breakdancing championships, despite the filmmaking carnage going on around him. This might be based on a true story – I really don’t care enough to find out, it’s certainly based on a documentary about breakdancing as they plug it heavily during the film each chance they get.

If the film industry is to be continually polluted by the music industry – can’t we at least have more of Katy Perry?

I think I may have put this up on another review somewhere, but it seems fitting to post it here too …

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