Honey Blu-Ray Box Set
Starring: Jessica Alba (Honey), Mekhi Phifer (Honey), Katerina Graham (Honey 2), Randy Wayne (Honey 2)
Director: Billie Woodruff
Ratings: Films: Honey 3/5 Honey 2 1/5
Blu-Ray: 3/5
The dance film has been one of the returning stars of the last decade, with more shapes being thrown in the last few years than at any points since the days of Flashdance and Footloose. Now the film that’s thought to have revitalised the genre arrives on Blu-ray, handily accompanied by this year’s sequel.
The first film sees Honey, a struggling dancer and choreographer trying to live her dreams of music video stardom. She soon finds out though that her dreams aren’t what she thought they’d be, and instead must try to help her downtrodden neighbourhood and show the kids the beauty of dance.
Honey 2 does away with this plot completely and focuses on Maria, a youth offender wrapped up in the world of dance battling. After swearing revenge on her old crew that got her arrested, she joins a small crew and tries to make them into a team good enough to win a dancing reality show beating her new enemies on the way.
These two films could not be more different if they tried, both in tone and quality.
Honey is a very hard film to hate. It may be predictable and cheesy, but it’s actually a surprisingly sweet and thoughtful film, more drama than dance film.
The film is carried through though on the shoulders of its leads, with both Alba and Phifer (as lovable barber Chaz) bringing a little star power and charisma to what otherwise would have been a dull picture.
The trouble is though that Honey has the horrible knack of simply feeling like an advert for its own soundtrack, a problem not helped by its flat dialogue and fairly plodding plot.
But whereas Honey had enough charm, heart and goodwill to overcome its faults, the same cannot be said about its sequel.
Honey 2 features a group of bland, unlikeable characters, very poor acting and a dull, dragging excuse for a story. It replaces the warmth and likeability of the original for empty aggression and pouting. It’s a very poor trade.
This might have been lessened if the dancing was good, but Honey 2 can’t keep up with its dance-battle contemporaries, featuring neither the intricacy nor sheer physicality of the Step Up films.
Add in returning director Billie Woodruff’s constant desire to take all the energy out of scenes with copious amounts of slow-mo and the film’s centrepieces fall very short.
On the upside, both of these films are great looking on Blu-ray, with very clean and crisp visuals for both films. The lack of any extras beyond short behind the scenes features and music videos hurts the overall quality of the disc though.
Despite this Blu-Ray’s great picture quality and double-feature value, this a package that’s hard to recommend to even the most ardent of dance film fans, mainly due to the noxious sequel.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith