The same old Dirty Dancing

It becomes clear while watching Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights that the film's creators worship the original. What they forget however, is that it was not snappy dialogue, an engaging plot, or sympathetic characters that made 1987's Dirty Dancing a pop-culture classic. The original Dirty Dancing occupies a select place of infamy in the annals of movie history. Along with films like Plan 9 From Outer Space and most of the movies released in the ‘80s, Dirty Dancing is a classic bad movie. And classic bad movies, while humorous in their failings, don't require sequels.

And Dirty Dancing did not require this sequel in particular, because it already got one. It's called Save the Last Dance, and even though that film didn't come with the title and a Patrick Swayze cameo, Last Dance could easily be Dirty Dancing 2: Ghetto Fabulous. So here's where we stand. Dirty Dancing is a bad movie. Save the Last Dance is a bad movie. Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights just continues the trend.

Very little is done to update the threadbare plot of the original for this lackluster sequel, the first major problem. Any story at all is merely an excuse to get the characters together on the dance floor, in the ocean, or in a club, pulsating and grinding to catchy updates of 1950s Cuban music. The dancing itself is suitably splendid, a mix between ballroom and salsa, but even that becomes repetitive in the face of witless dialogue and uncharismatic characters.

Paying homage to its predecessor, Havana Nights opens with a voice-over narration by maligned brainiac Katey Miller (Romola Garai), in which she bemoans her father's transfer to Cuba during her senior year of high school and elaborates on her own special qualities that set her apart from the simpering, blonde masses. Katey immediately finds herself at odds with her racist, conformist classmates during a soiree at the local country club. Bored with dancing that would have made Johnny Castle writhe on the floor in agony, Katey drags her date to a Cuban club, where she finds the locals caught in the beat of the Black Eyed Peas, one of the few positive things about Havana Nights.

The infectious and musically interesting dance numbers, supplied mostly by the Black Eyed Peas and Mya, are sufficient to draw you into Cuba for awhile, especially once Havana Nights introduces the smooth moves of Javier Suarez (Diego Luna), a Cuban waiter destined to be Katey's forbidden love interest. Luna is a welcome contrast to Miller's dreary presence. He, at least, abounds with energy, charisma, and irresistibly crooked smiles. Miller, however, does not keep up her side of the chemistry, even when the two enter a dance contest and begin training in increasingly sexual situations. Though neither actor is adept at anger, Miller is forever unable to summon up anything more intense than confused bewilderment, even when Katey's little sister gets Javier fired. She walks around in a perpetual daze, and it takes all of Luna's charm to make the non-dancing scenes even bearable.

Katey and Javier's competition dance, though, is refreshing, and mercifully the movie recognizes that this is its strongpoint and builds quickly to the contest's semifinals. The couple spices up the floor with Latin-flavored ballroom moves, dipping and twirling their way to a shot at the grand prize of $5000. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie after the semi-finals is deeply anticlimactic. Director Guy Ferland loses the narrative thread and goes aimlessly searching for it in Fidel Castro's uprising.

This is the most irksome quality of Havana Nights. The film purports to differ from the original Dirty Dancing by setting the same plot against the backdrop of the Cuban revolution of 1958. However, the revolution is there at the director's convenience. When he needs filler to wile away the minutes between dance montages, he comes back to politics, then just as quickly abandons them after his dancers have had a breather. The Cuba of Havana Nights resembles the Cuba of 1958 like freezer pizza resembles delivery. Where is the fear, the chaos, the guerrilla warfare? Cleaned up for modern convenience and over-sensitive audience members.

Basically, take Dirty Dancing, replace the mambo with the tango, and throw in a few trumpets for good measure, and out pops Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights. As the film's formula has been famously applied to both greater and lesser success, Havana Nights seems destined to wash up only on the Been There, Done That, Bought the Soundtrack shelf of cinema history.

Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights is rated PG-13 for sensuality.