You Got Served (1/2 star)
review by Jon Waterman

Do you like dancing? Do you long for the days of movies about hip-hop dancing? Well, then put your “Breakin’” tape on pause and go see “You Got Served.” It combines the fad films of the 80s with the hip-hop dancing culture of today!

What a horrible piece of crap this turned out to be. I can’t really say I’m surprised, though. Remember all of those sports movies from back in the day like “Rad,” “BMX,” “Skateboard: The Movie,” etc.? They were obviously made to capitalize on the surge of popularity of those sports. They completely abandoned any thought or production value in favor of what I can only assume was a quick release date. The same type of stuff is happening again. What do you think “Grind” was all about? I personally don’t know how popular this dancing is or was, but centering a film around such a non-theme as that only perks my curiosity more. Where “Grind” failed; “You Got Served” succeeded – kinda.

This film actually got real dancers to perform and showed us some real dancing. Most of the steps obviously required a lot of hard work and skill to execute. I wish it wasn’t so chopped up so that it would be even more impressive. The biggest problem with the dancing, though, is that the best stuff is used up in the beginning. The opening scenes are all about dance battles and in order to draw the audience in, they tease us with all of this fancy stuff. Little do we know that they’ve just blown their wad. The end climactic confrontation gives nothing too incredibly interesting or unique.

Of course, the dancing is the best part of the movie. The acting, the script, the everything else is wretched. I don’t think I’ve used that word before to describe a film, but it’s true. It’s a giant showcase of members of the group B2K and they dropped the ball.

One of things that got to me most was that these people don’t have real jobs. They make all their money through dance battles. Normally that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but when that’s not enough, they go to this guy named Emerald and run illegal stuff to wherever. So, their lives consist totally of dancing, basketball and crime. Is that really the image to portray? Granted it’s not taking it to the extremes, but it still seems like they’re promoting this as natural and reasonable. Not to mention that in some respect, the movie became about black versus white dancers without actually saying so.

Start with dancing, then add a bad script, a bunch of fresh-faced, inexpensive kids (and one white boy that looks like a cartoon character), a love interest, a sassy grandmother and a celebrity cameo or two and you got yourself a movie. The whole movie is a formula. I guess no one told them the finish product always comes out spoiled. This movie serves itself, sucka.

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