Foreground from left: Ryan Guzman, Misha Gabriel, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, and Angeline Appel (Sam Emerson/Summit)

“You have exquisite technique—but no originality.” This is what a seasoned teacher tells aspiring young dancer Emily Anderson (Kathryn McCormick) mid-way through Step Up Revolution, and you can probably guess whether Emily finds herself through her feet.

It may seem ironic for a character to call for originality in what is the third sequel to a little-loved movie. The plot arc is as old as the hills, from the Andy Hardy movies where the kids put on a show and save the farm to any number of contemporary underdog pictures where you know who’s going to win. That the romantic leads come from two different worlds dates this all the way back to Romeo and Juliet.

So if you don’t expect any surprises from something called Step Up Revolution, I don’t blame you. But you know what? All that fancy footwork, supported by high production values, makes Step Up Revolution a watchable and even inventive sequel, and because the movies don’t follow any kind of overarching plot, I can recommend it even to someone who hasn’t seen any of the others.

The first Step Up was a coming of age movie set in Baltimore, and was probably the closest the series came to true grit. The movie had a breakout role for Channing Tatum, and you wonder if the stripper experience that informed Magic Mike also informed that early role. I missed the second installment, and should have skipped the terrible Step Up 3-D, whose star dancer Adam Sevani comes off like a moon walking Pauly Shore, has a cameo here for the couple of people who are fans (I heard mild applause at the preview screening). The new movie does something that amounts to a cinematic revolution in the history of the series: it knows how to film dance.

In the new film, cinematographer Karsten Gopinath, who shot music videos by Beyonce and J-Lo, employs gracefully sweeping camerawork, not just for dance numbers but for shots as simple as a couple of characters sitting on the hood of their Ford muscle car on a Miami bridge. I usually hate it when filmmakers crop the body in dance routines, but the shot rhythm made possible by such cuts is as well choreographed as the dancers, who do a lot more than just moonwalk, and who don’t remind me of Pauly Shore at all.

From the beginning of Revolution, director Scott Speer plays with action movie tropes. A fleet of vintage cars ominously stop on a busy thoroughfare in Miami’s South Beach. A young tough tells his buddy he’s worried this will be the night he’s thrown in jail. But the coordinated attack is no drive-by shooting. It’s a meticulously planned dance piece performed by The Mob and recorded in the hopes of going viral. The Amazing Spider-Man recently asserted (repeatedly, but I forgive it) that the world’s storylines all boil down to one question: “Who am I?” In Step Up Revolution, the question is answered by that old cinematic stand-by: “let’s put on a show!”

Ryan Guzman and Kathryn McCormick (Sam Emerson/Summit)

The movie’s star-crossed lovers meet at a resort where Sean (Ryan Guzman) works as a waiter. Emily can’t get a bartender’s attention so she takes charge and pours herself a drink. She has to take charge of her life as well. Sean coaxes a beer out of her and dares her to dance, and this is where they hit it off, a sensuous encounter before they so much as kiss. The routine peaks with the dancers throwing sand on themselves and each other, which is silly but also meaningful – music and rhythm lets them get down to something primordial. The beach becomes a cliché as backlit sunsets light their duet rehearsals, but those scenes are one of the film’s rare missteps, and are just prelude to what amounts to taking back the beach.

Emily turns out to be the daughter of Sean’s boss (Peter Gallagher, in a role that in a different era would have been played by Lionel Barrymore). You can check off the rest of the clichés from there: the river journey, the betrayal, the misunderstanding. But one thing Step Up Revolution does offer a fresh and inspired metaphor. From the opening flash mob, dance and creativity are treated as a heist and an ambush. What is the creative act but an attempt to pull off something, to steal fire from the gods? Art has the ability to surprise and inspire passion, and in the Step Up series the entire body is a conduit for expression. It’s not exactly Merce Cunningham, but the flash mob dances grow increasingly more inventive, and one of the numbers even reminded me of the automatons of Colony, an excellent performance piece I caught at Fringe Fest. I’m not spoiling things by telling you that The Mob’s hopes for viral Valhalla are met when their video climbs to the top of the YouTube charts, but pay close attention to their rise. A minor detail pokes fun at viral sensations: the number two spot is held by a video called “Meow Dubset Mashup.” Unfortunately, another scene bears a disturbing resemblance to recent events in Aurora, but part of the film’s point is that art and dance does not exist in a vacuum.

What does all this have to do with revolution? Emily’s father threatens to level Sean’s working-class neighborhood to put in high-rise offices and condos. Can dancing flash mobs enact change? For an escapist summer dance movie to assert the body as a means of protest may seem naive. But it’s only a movie, and an entertaining one at that. Rest assured that the 21st century farm is safe in the finely articulated gams of these terpsichorean tykes.

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Step Up Revolution
Directed by Scott Speer
Written by Jenny Mayer, based on characters created by Duane Alder
With Ryan Guzman, Kathryn McCormick, Peter Gallagher, Misha Gabriel,
Rated PG-13 for some suggestive dancing and language
Running time 99 minutes
Opens today at area theaters.