Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
Remember that movie ‘Honey’? Jessica Alba? No? Maybe? I remember it vaguely. I remember Jessica Alba being hotter than usual, which is saying something, I remember Jessica Alba playing an African American, which was odd but not quite as odd as her playing a blue-eyed blonde white woman in those Fantastic Four movies, and I remember Jessica Alba having one of the worst urban accents in recent memory. What I don’t remember is thinking how awesome a sequel would be. But thanks to director Billie Woodruff, who has a talent for directing impossibly hot women of color in suspect dance movies… Alba in ‘Honey’, Christina Milian in one of those ‘Bring it On’ sequels, and now Katarina Graham in ‘Honey 2’, we have a sequel to ‘Honey’. We gotta admit we do feel a little pervy terming Miss Graham as ‘Impossibly Hot’ since she is young enough to be my daughter, I mean I’d be a young dad… but still. Whaddayagonnado?
At the local juvenile facility, the gang is about to face off. Do they use knives? No sir, they use their hot dance moves. Note, if you find yourself on the street about to encounter some dangerous thugs, just start dancing. It has saved my ass on numerous occasions. The main dancer for these thugettes is Maria Ramirez (Graham) who has served her time and is about to be released to the custody of Miss Daniels (Lonette McKee), Honey’s mom. That would be the link the first movie, and to save you the trouble of hoping, like I was, that Honey might make a little spandex appearance at some time… stop hoping, not happening.
Back on the street Maria just wants to get her life together, but her former boyfriend Luis (Christopher Martinez), who got her into all that trouble in the first place, just wants his girl back. Plus he’s changed. He helps feed the poor and passes out school supplies and all kinds of stuff, and Maria is a believer. That is until Maria learns he really hasn’t changed.
But all Maria really wants to do is dance. She was thinking about getting back with Luis and joining the old 718 Crew, but then Luis let her down. So instead she opts to join the ragtag crew of Brandon the College Boy (Randy Wayne), whom she met while handling her duties as a janitor at the local recreation center. Now I’m not saying anything, and it’s not like sweeping is a real skill or nothing, but I’m thinking Katarina Graham hasn’t done much floor sweeping in her young life.
Regardless of all that, not all of the members of the High Definition Crew are happy to have Maria as their new member / choreographer, particularly extra hostile, but also completely adorable thugette Tina (Seychelle Gabriel) who despises Maria for no other reason Tina is a just a hateful little cute girl.
So stop me if you’ve heard this somewhere before, but there’s this Dance Crew TV show, hosted by Mario Lopez no less, and the HD Crew wants to compete. They aren’t ready, but Maria gets them ready, however the 718 Crew are the kings of the hill. It’s a tough road, there are challenges along the way like you would not believe, and and I hate to spoil it for you, but the HD Crew makes it to the final dance off with the 718 Crew. Who wins? Oh, I don’t know. But what are the chances that it ends in a tie, resulting in a final face to face dance off? That never happens in these movies. Ever. Unless that movie is Bring it On 1-5, Step Up, Drumline, Stomp the Yard, You Got Served or whatever other movie you can think of. Prepare to be surprised.
Look, while I can’t really step out there and call ‘Honey 2’ some kind of cinematic masterpiece or anything like that, but I do know that Billie Woodruff knows how to make this nonsense. And yes, ‘Honey 2’ is a complete, total, predictable nonsense filled tale, filled with suspect acting, cardboard characters and some truly atrocious dialog, but with a host of supremely fit young women and men dancing and prancing, and boy does this movie possess a lot of energy. Now it will definitely help your appreciation of this movie if you happen to be really big fan of dancing, because barely two minutes passes by when someone or some crew doesn’t drop everything and start cutting a rug. The best thing Maria was able to do with that broom she barely knew how to use was dance with it. There was even a semi love scene, but it was dance love scene. Every once in a while I would find myself inwardly complaining about the preponderance of dancing in this movie, only to be caught up in some scene of exposition filled with more suspect acting and horrific dialog coming out the mouths of some very good looking people, only to wish they would be quiet and start dancing some more. And they would. It was a conundrum.
‘Honey 2’ is a high energy, fast moving, dance filled mess of a movie but certainly a watchable one. If I was a fourteen year old boy, it would probably be the best movie ever.
