There's no winner in 'Battle of the Year'.

Even as teen dance films go, this one is clumsy, miscast, lazy and cliched.

Granted, the bar has never been raised that high on the teen dance movie.

But even by those modest measures, Battle of the Year (* out of four; rated PG-13; opens Friday nationwide) is a gross misstep, a frenetic mess that makes Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloolook like a Fellini film.


Battle touts itself as being based on a true competition, which is like saying Avatar is based on the real universe. Unfortunately, that's as real as Battle is gonna keep it.

By way of hurried exposition, we learn that "b-boying," the dance that cross-pollinates a hyperactive Olympic gymnastics floor exercise with rap music, is dying in the U.S. You know your movie is in trouble if it concedes that Americans became bored with your subject matter decades ago.

To bring the "b-boy" crown back to the land that spawned the dance, urban fashion mogul Dante Graham (Laz Alonso) decides to form a Dream Team of dancers to compete for the world title in France.

They'll be led by one of our favorite Hollywood clichés, the drunk, unemployed high school coach, this time in the form of Jason Blake (Josh Holloway). Jason once danced, though you'd never guess it here, and was a great basketball coach before gin and a family tragedy got the best of him. So why wouldn't he know how to teach urban kids how to cut a rug?


He doesn't, which may explain why it takes more than 45 minutes to get to any detailed dance scenes, and nearly an hour to real competition.

The dancers are fine, led by Chris Brown, who plays Rooster, a kid with sharp moves and a sharper mouth.

But director Benson Lee can never get any liftoff from Battle's astonishingly lazy script. Holloway, in particular, is miscast as the film's Great Inspiration. He looks like he'd qualify for a refund from the Arthur Miller Dance School and is fond of saying that there is no "i" in team before banning his b-boys from using it — and uttering it himself minutes later.

He's right: There is no "i" in team. But there are a few in imbecilic.

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Worse, the film is an unabashed advertisement for itself. Battle makes numerous references to a real dance film it calls groundbreaking, Planet B-Boy, Benson's 2007 documentary. Distributor Sony has its actors hawk the company's electronic games and tablets. And Braun razor ads are everywhere for some reason (isn't this one demographic that wouldn't need an electric shaver?).

Somewhere, writers may have had the kernel of a real story. Battle dances over a few Glee-inspired moments, such as the gay dancer and Mideast military vet.

But there's nothing coordinated about Battle, nor anything that stops it from stepping on its own toes.