Shall We Dance? waltzes into implausibility

Movies filled with romance and dance are exhilarating and exciting. Flashdance and Footloose, for example, combined the two elements with terrific results. And so Shall We Dance? had the potential to be great. But the romance in the movie is between a middle-aged couple already married to each other, and the dancing is not the wild, crazy and spectacular dancing found in other dance films. Instead Shall We Dance? offers viewers ballroom dancing: waltzes, quickstep and rumba. And the footwork is not enough to keep the movie from tripping and falling into boredom.

In the film, which is based on a 1997 Japanese movie of the same title, Chicago probate lawyer John Clark (Richard Gere, Chicago, Runaway Bride) has become tired of his monotonous life. After 20 years of writing wills, he has everything he wants, but somehow, it's not enough to prevent the tired cliché of a mid-life crisis. One night, while riding the train home, he spots a forlorn beauty gazing despondently out the window of Miss Mitzi's Dance Studio. After seeing her in the window for several nights, Clark jumps off the train and enters the studio. He signs up for ballroom dancing lessons in an attempt to meet the disaffected girl, Paulina (Jennifer Lopez, Maid in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner).

Taught by Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette, Larger Than Life), Clark and two classmates, Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and Vern (Omar Miller), slowly begin to improve their dancing skills, advancing from having two left feet to being accomplished ballroom dancers in a head-spinning amount of time.

Along the way, Clark meets many eccentric characters, including the wild dancer Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter, The Parent Trap) whose crazy costumes seem to never end, and Link Peterson (Stanley Tucci, Road to Perdition), Clark's coworker, who has been covertly dancing for years under a Latin guise.

Tucci's character was the best part of the movie. His skintight costumes, terrible wig and self-tanning are hilarious, as is his transformation from balding white-collar worker by day into the wild Latin ballroom dancer that he becomes every night. Peterson is nothing if not likeable, and the audience can sympathize with his inability to reveal his true identity as a dancer.

However, likeable characters can't fix the fact that the whole plot is inconceivable from start to finish. Clark hides his dancing from his family because he is embarrassed that he hadn't been happy with his life. His secrecy causes his wife (Susan Sarandon) to hire a private detective in order to make sure Clark isn't having an affair. Somehow, Clark's dancing changes all the lives around him, from the despondent Paulina to Clark's wife. Most implausibly, the film requires that viewers believe that three men with no prior dance experience can become good enough to compete in dance contests in less than three months.

The small romances that occur throughout the film, although cheesy and unbelievable, are mildly enjoyable. It's hard not to like the various dancers and hope for happy endings, which are readily supplied by the film. The dancers are all fun and unique characters, but it's unfortunate that the plot is so terrible.

Shall We Dance? is a good way to waste a few hours, but the movie just isn't worth $8.50. It's better to wait for it to come out on video and rent it as a late-night, no-thought-needed slumber-party film.

Shall We Dance?(106 minutes) is rated PG-13 for some sexual references and brief language.