Dylan's Movie Review: "Stomp The Yard" Tells Familiar Story, Plus Dancing

Hollywood enjoys employing very basic plots. Guy meets girl, girl has boyfriend, guy wins girl over, etc. "Stomp the Yard," currently in theaters, is one of these movies.

With so many movies made along these same lines, one begins to wonder how these movies make any money. The answer is quite straightforward: we enjoy these simple plotlines.

The movie opens in Los Angeles at an underground dance competition. Piles of money are thrown around, the music is loud and the dancing aggressive, pairing perfectly with the battling pit bulls nearby. The Goon Squad, led by DJ (Columbus Short) and Duron Williams (Chris Brown), challenges the local team and wins twice in a convincing fashion. As they walk home later that night, the other team assaults them and the resulting battle ends in the death of Duron.

DJ, after being tried and convicted of assault, gets a scholarship at Truth University through his uncle, a groundskeeper at the college. It's here that the plot begins to follow the traditional twists and turns of vintage Hollywood. As DJ stands in line to register for classes, he sees the beautiful April Palmer (Meagan Good) and immediately falls head over heels, only to realize that she's already dating Grant (Darrin Henson), the closest thing to royalty that exists at Truth.

This storyline is intertwined with the competition between the two major fraternities on campus. Both frats have high-level stepping teams, which perform a style of dance based on the rhythm of a whole team stomping feet and clapping hands together. After DJ shows up Grant on the dance floor of a local club, both fraternities offer him the opportunity to pledge, with the idea that he'll make the chosen frat's team better.

DJ chooses the Theta Nu Theta frat (not Grant's) due to their integrity, all the while trying to impress April with his work ethic, study habits, and professions of love. This comes to a head when Grant proposes and April realizes that DJ cares for her more. She, of course, refuses and turns to DJ. Grant, in retribution, as well as in fear that his frat, Mu Gamma, might lose the national stepping championship to Theta Nu Theta, uncovers DJ's criminal record, causing him to be suspended. As is the case in all movies of this nature, everything turns out perfectly in the end. DJ and April live happily ever after as he finishes his degree and Theta Nu Theta finally wins the championship and gets the respect they feel they deserve.

So why do we care? The major reason is the dance routines, which are explosive in their energy and new in their style. While stepping may have a devoted following, that following isn't as widely known as it should be, something that this movie attempts to remedy. We can only hope that it succeeds. Otherwise, though predictable and average throughout, the movie works on the fact that we all love a feel-good story. Even though we know that it's going to happen, we still congratulate the characters as they find friendship, happiness and love. It shows us the ending that we all want for ourselves, allowing us to intimately relate to the characters.