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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 54.12%
Worth A Look: 8.24%
Average: 18.82%
Pretty Bad: 10.59%
Total Crap: 8.24%
3 reviews, 67 user ratings
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| Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights |
by Erik Childress
"Nobody Puts Castro In The Corner"
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No it wasn’t necessary. Have I answered all your questions about the sequel to the 1987 cult hit? Ah-ha, but “sequel” would be inaccurate, since its merely just an attempt to cow some cash on an already-sold brand name. That and its actually a prequel. C’mon, how many questions do you really have? You’re not actually going to see this, right? So what do you care? There’s very little to say about it anyway since it may be the first film to actually adapt the Seinfeld axiom of being about nothing.Nothing much happens at all in Havana Nights except a little thing called the Cuban Revolution, which apparently was about the same thing that drove the Nazis to knock off those pesky Swing Kids. They don’t like songs or dancing. The white epicenter of Havana feels like an invasion all its own with days by the swimming pool and fancy parties at night.
In a candidate for blandest narration of all time, Katey Vendetto (Romola Garai - hopefully dancing is her day job) tells us how daddy got a job down there and they were forced to move or something. Mommy and Daddy (Sela Ward and John Slattery) used to be great dancers but have since given it up. Little sis Susie (Mika Boorem) is in with the young socialites. These include James (Jonathan Jackson) whose dad is Katey’s dad’s boss and Eve (January Jones) who will call a waiter a “spic”, get Katey in trouble for socializing with said “spic” and then leave the movie altogether.
The racial slur in question belongs to Xavier Perez (Diego Luna, the other half of Y Tu Mama Tambien), a kinda-revolutionary who believes in dancing rather than guns. Well, he likes to dance. I don’t know if he actually believes in it. His moves intrigue Katey and hack off James who in turn aggressively puts the moves on her. Don’t worry, there are no rusty hanger abortions in this film. It’s about the dancing!
Yeah, that’s what they all say. Truth is the dancing really isn’t all that dirty. Maybe in 1987, sweaty thigh-touching seemed taboo (at least until the Lambada film craze of 1990) but this is Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards stuff nowadays. Xavier & Katey take to training for a dance contest in the Swayze/Grey milieu and the dancing itself is actually nicely done. Luna and Garai certainly don’t generate any sexiness in the steps of their relationship since they have all the heat of two ants on different coasts. But after seeing the abomination that is You Got Served, it was nice to see some dancing that didn’t resemble a full body dry heave set to music or Alfonso Ribeiro in the denouement of Ticks.
Havana Nights is great snickering material and not much else. The greatest snicker may come a half-hour in when that recognizable voice teaching the dance class happens to be none other than Patrick Swayze. HEY, A TIE-IN! Except its 17 years since the original and this film takes place prior to. Maybe that’s why Swayze isn’t labeled in the credits as Johnny Castle but “dance class instructor” Still, its nice to see Swayze showing the youngsters what dancing really is.
It’s hard to really smackdown Havana Nights, although it’s still a bad movie. Virtually no serious effort was put into anything but the dance scenes and that’s enough to warrant immediate scorn. You Got Served had Lil’ Kim showing more tit than talent and at least Havana Nights has Mya belting out a nice Latin number during the contest. Put it in perspective and its depressing just how much worse you could do, especially when a Bad Boys sequel has more of a Cuban revolution than this film. I certainly didn’t feel the music (nor the heat, passion, or fire) and you won’t have the time of your life as the poster suggests.Havana Nights could have done just as poorly without the Dirty Dancing labeling, thus forcing it to eliminate the Swayze connection and chop another 10 minutes off the movie. Everybody wins. 75 minutes would still be a bit long for a film without a screenplay, but maybe in more tolerable installments we can look forward to Dirty Dancing: Siberian Winters, Dirty Dancing: Rainforest Storms & Dirty Dancing: Breakin’ 3: The Electric Forbidden Domination starring Janet Jackson’s breast and Kevin Bacon’s shlong.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8775&reviewer=198
originally posted: 02/27/04 17:25:53
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This film is available for download or online viewing at CinemaNow.com For more in the CinemaNow.com series, click here.
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USA
27-Feb-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 20-Jul-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
13-May-2004 (PG)
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