Battle of the Year Reviews
Top Criticits dramatization of a U.S. dream team's journey to the international showcase is leaden with predictable character types and storytelling clichés, neither of which its well-executed but oddly infrequent dance sequences are able to overcome.
The actual dancing scenes are occasionally electrifying, if far too sparse, but other than that and the welcome sight of co-star Chris Brown getting clocked in the face, the film barely gets off the ground, much less sticks the landing.
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| Original Score: D+
A dead-in-the-soul cash grab of a movie set in the competitive world of B-boy dancing that thinks clichés, phony melodrama and product placement can substitute for real storytelling and actual characters.
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| Original Score: 0.5/5
Should satisfy the planet of b-boys and girls to whom it thoroughly preaches, while amusing anyone else who simply can't ignore the promise of an all-corn buffet.
The 3-D is a pain, and the excitable editing, slo-mo and speeded-up action frustrate attempts to watch the athleticism on display ...
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| Original Score: 2/4
The miracle of the new 3-D dance film "Battle of the Year" is how it can be so relentlessly boring while there is so much frenetic activity on screen.
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| Original Score: 1/5
The raison d'être of popping-and-locking scenes is trumped by tired team-building bathos, whose flagrancy is anything but conducive to spreading the film's hug-it-out bro-love.
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| Original Score: 1/5
The story is a derivative quilt, patching together cliches from every sports movie since 1976.
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| Original Score: 2/4
This 3-D spectacle is less the dance movie that's going to make b-boying cool again than a shill for sponsors' gear.
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| Original Score: 2/5
At the risk of sounding 100, I think it's regrettable this film had to be shot in digital 3-D.
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| Original Score: 2/4
A frenetic mess that makes Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloolook like a Fellini film.
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| Original Score: 1/4
Battle of the Year is too inept to make this tired premise sing.
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| Original Score: 1/4
If you can get past the mountain of cliches and poor acting and hackneyed story lines and the fact that someone let Chris Brown be in a movie, "Battle of the Year" is actually ... still pretty awful.
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| Original Score: 1.5/5
Fatally frontloaded with endless training montages, awfully written, indifferently acted drama, sports-film platitudes and jaw-dropping product placements that only the hardiest of viewers will make it through to the payoff.
Chris Brown gets punched in the face, so it's not a total wash.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Everything about Benson Lee's predictable dance flick "Battle of the Year" strikes me as old.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
It's undeniable that the good-natured "Afterschool Special" vibe here plays to the film's corny strengths, and the dancing is impressive. So much so that it's almost impossible not to cheer during the final round.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The dorky, jingoistic charm wins points just for daring to dress the team in red, white and blue Kangols while the judges scream, "Korea strikes back with an aerial assault!"
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| Original Score: C+
