Stomp the Yard Release Date: January 12, 2007 Starring: Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Darrin Henson, Harry J. Lennix, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown Directed by: Sylvain White
PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 1/19/07)
Stomp the Yard — which looks at black college life through the lens of stepping, a competitive mix of marching and dance — probably never would've never been made without the success of 2002's Drumline. Unfortunately, Yard plays like a Scary Movie-esque parody of every African-American teen drama that's been released in Drumline's wake. Like the unwieldy plots of the Scary Movie franchise, Stomp the Yard basically has a broad outline in place of a story, so that it can easily be filled with every cliché of the genre.
Once DJ, a disgraced Los Angeles step dancer, tries in vain to save his younger brother from being shot by a rival stepper after a dance competition, he is sent off to live with his mother and uncle in Atlanta to try to rebuild his life. After his uncle pulls a few strings, he enrolls at Truth University, a Southern school that amazingly has the two best stepping fraternities in the South. When DJ sees April, an attractive co-ed/provost's daughter/fraternity member's off-limits girlfriend, he returns to stepping to vie for April's affections. Soon, the two rival fraternities go to war and complications ensue. The climatic dance-off is about as surprising as a film that sends its lead character to Truth University can be.
Tying neatly into its Martin Luther King Jr. birthday weekend release date, Yard contains a brief coda from Dr. King about education. It is enlightening because of the power of Dr. King's words, yet DJ is never seen in a classroom.
Director Sylvain White, whose last film was the equally unnecessary I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, manages to take the joy out of a dance movie by jerking the camera around and speeding up the dance moves so much. The film's breakneck pace does stop long enough to allow for some nice chemistry between Columbus Short and Meagan Good as the star-crossed lovers, but ultimately, Stomp the Yard needs to learn a new routine.
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