Monday Movie Review: Work It
It’s like the Netflix gods have heard my repeated calls for terrible dance movies and they just keep answering them. Thank you Netflix gods, for bringing me these few bright spots in a time of darkness. The latest bad dance movie is called Work It, and to be totally honest, I didn’t hate. It’s got some major problems, obviously, but overall, it was fun, the dancing was good, and Jordan Fisher could read the phone book and I would happily watch it.
Quinn (Sabrina Carpenter) is basically the perfect student. She’s got great grades, extracurriculars, and on paper she is the perfect college candidate. However, when she goes for her interview at her dream school, the admissions counselor encourages her to be more passionate about something. Basically she tells her to find her thing. At which point Quinn lies and tells her she is on the award-winning dance team at her school. When the counselor says she’ll make sure to look for Quinn at the big end of the year competition, Quinn has no choice but to audition for her school’s team. She doesn’t make it, obviously, because she’s terrible. So she convinces her best friend Jas (Liza Koshy), who is on the team, to start a new team with her. They gather their merry band of misfits and recruit Jake Taylor (Jordan Fisher), a past winner of the competition, to choreograph. There are several dance montages, some kissing, some fighting, lots of snark, and lo and behold, the new team ends up taking home the competition.
Let’s get the problems out of the way. When I originally saw this trailer, I got the impression this was going to be like a reverse Bring It On, where the white kids play the poor me card and take away a hard earned victory from the dance group mostly made up of POC. That’s not actually the case (at least from my white girl perspective), which I was happy to see. But there were some other problems. The worst for me is that Quinn is a high school senior (though her explicit age isn’t stated), and Jake the choreographer and eventual love interest is several years older. Neither age is given, but Quinn is for sure still in high school, and in the meantime Jake’s got his own apartment and career. There’s some consent issues that should have been addressed (all she had to do was be like “I’m eighteen!” at some point and I would have felt better about the whole thing). I also did not love Quinn pressuring her best friend to quit the established dance team and join her new fledgling one because Jas needs the competition to get recruited for a dance program. The actual high school parts of the story are not based at all in reality, given that Quinn tanks her entire GPA over the last few months of the school year, which in reality doesn’t mean much since college apps have already been submitted. Also, I find it hard to believe a character like Quinn who had top notch grades is suddenly on the verge of failing, she would have basically had to stop showing up to school for that to happen. Also other than Quinn’s mom and Jake, there are basically no adults in this movie. Where is their advisor? You can’t just start a dance team based out of your high school without the school being involved. Honestly, though, I can give those oversights a pass because most movies don’t actually get high school right.
Alright. The good stuff. I mean, Jordan Fisher is it. The biggest flaw in the movie is he isn’t in it enough. His dance numbers are flawless, he’s so stinkin cute, and he actually knows how to act, which in a dance movie, is practically unheard of. Love love love him. Liza Koshy (Jas) was also super fun to watch. She’s a great dancer, and her character was fun and funny. The other band of misfits members were also great, but I don’t feel like any of them got enough screen time to really stand out. Sabrina Carpenter is fine, but nothing she did made her memorable in the role. This movie is definitely about Jake and Jas. I really liked the choreography by Aakomon Jones, again Jordan’s numbers were a standout, but for the most part I liked all of the dance scenes.
Honestly, this movie could have been so much worse. It has some problems, but overall, I think it was better than some of the others I’ve watched recently. Scratch that, it was better than all of the other ones I’ve watched recently. I guess the key for me is casting Jordan Fisher in your dance movie!
Overall Grade: B
