Step Up

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Step Up's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Step Up completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 16 September 2006.

Age recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie TITLE contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum) is a foster child living in a home with two other foster children. He is from a poor part of Baltimore where the mothers are constantly working and kids do things like steal cars for fun. He and his best friend Mac (Damaine Radcliff) and Macs little brother ‘Skinny' (De'Shawn Washington) break into a school and start trashing the theatre. Halfway through this activity, a security guard comes, Tyler gets Mac and Skinny to run and ‘takes the rap' for all of them.

He is sentenced to 200 hours community service at the school he trashed. This turns out to be “ Maryland School of the Arts”. At first he is both intimidated and unimpressed by the students and their classes. However when a pretty girl, Nora (Jenna Dewan) catches his eye he begins to take an interest in what is going on around him. When Nora's partner sprains his ankle, and is unable to dance with her in an important performance, Tyler offers to help out.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Juvenile crime, Death of a sibling, Social class

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• at a party, a man grabs Tyler by the throat and they fight
• another man draws a gun and threatens to shoot Tyler
• Skinny is shot and killed
• a security guard aggressively tackles Tyler to the ground.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

The above-mentioned violent scenes could be upsetting for children under the age of eight.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Skinny's death and the grief that Mac, his mother and Tyler feel may be particularly upsetting for this age group.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Some children aged eight to thirteen could be disturbed by the above mentioned scenes.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• an Apple Mac computer
• a BMW.

Sexual references

None of concern.

Nudity and sexual activity

None

Use of substances

Some alcohol consumption

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• bitch
• bullshit
• screwed.

The movie's message

The message of Step Up is that once you have a goal, don't give up, but stick with it until you achieve what you want.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• teamwork
• the importance of listening to others
• taking responsibility for your actions
• understanding and tolerance
• loyalty and friendship.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children the importance of deciding what you want in life and how you are going to get there.