Dir: Ben Gregor
Release: 3 May 2013
Cert: U
From the team that brought you Street Dance comes new Brit flick All Stars, a family-friendly feel-good tale of a group of unlikely teenage friends battling to save their beloved community centre with a talent contest – oh, and win over the hottest girl in school. Obvs.
While the story of All Stars might sound familiar, director Ben Gregor manages to take the plot we think we know and turn it into something fresh, new and utterly charming.
Cheeky chappy Theo Stevenson (Horrid Henry) plays wise guy Ethan, who thinks he’s approximately 684 times cooler than he actually is. When Ethan spies Lucy, he decides he has to go out with her – but the prettiest girl in school, it turns out, only goes out with dancers. (The weirdest dating requirement we’ve ever heard, but just go with it.) This leaves Ethan with a dilemma.
Ethan’s schoolmate Jaden (Akai Osei-Mansfield) is having problems of his own. His mum and dad are keen for him to get into a posh private school, and they’ve banned him from his first love – dancing – to keep distractions at bay. Jaden then discovers that the local youth centre, The Garage, is under threat, with council chiefs moving into mow down the centre that so many local young people rely on.
Jaden hatches a plan – put on a talent show to raise money that’ll save the centre. He ropes in Ethan to help, who’s convinced that putting together a street dance crew will help him win over Lucy, with a little bit of choreography help from Jaden. But with Jaden banned from dancing himself, Ethan and his newly-recruited crew mates all blessed with two left feet and centre owner Gina putting a hold on the talent contest, how can they possibly pull it off?
This one might be targeted at the tween market, but that’s a fact that didn’t stop us from loving High School Musical. All Stars has plenty of laughs, jokes which go over the little ones’ heads and the dancing is pretty fantastic. Akai, who won the first series of Got To Dance, is supremely talented and left us feeling a bit old and past it as he pulled of some incredible moves.
The casting, too, is perfect. Theo Stevenson has great comic timing and bucketloads of charm that’ll have 12-year-old girls swooning all over the place. Scotland’s own Ashley Jensen brings a lot of warmth as centre owner Gina, but what’s great about this movie is the fact that the kids really take centre stage, showing us that there’s hope for the next generation of Britain’s acting scene. Gamal Toseafa, who plays Brian the chunky kid with the weird dress sense and talent for mixing amazing tracks, almost steals the show as one of the misfits that joins Ethan’s crew, showing off a real knack for comedy. Small roles for Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh and John Barrowman seem a little pointless, as they pair have about six lines between them, but it’s not too damaging over all.
Yeah, it’s a little cheesy. Sure, we’ve all seen the ‘we can do this, guys’ movie a million times. No, it’s not an instant classic. But d’you know what? It’s really good fun. And even more impressive in 3D – it’s like the kids are dancing right in front of your face. Just try not to duck.
It might be a little uncool to go see All Stars with your pals, but drag your little sister along to you local screening – we promise you won’t regret it.
[rating=4 stars]
