Make It Happen

2008

Drama / Musical

7
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 40% · 17 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 40% · 10K ratings
IMDb Rating 5.4/10 10 6631 6.6K

dance

Plot summary

Embarking on a journey to fulfill her dreams as a dancer, a young girl discovers a new style of dance that will prove to be the source of both conflict and self-discovery.

Director

Darren Grant Photo
Darren Grant

Top cast

Tessa Thompson Photo
Tessa Thompson as Dana
Mary Elizabeth Winstead Photo
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lauryn
Riley Smith Photo
Riley Smith as Russ
Karen LeBlanc Photo
Karen LeBlanc as Brenda
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
827.05 MB
1280*536
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles it  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 2
1.66 GB
1920*804
English 5.1
NR
Subtitles it  
23.976 fps
1 hr 30 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by mluinstra 4 / 10

You have seen it done before and done better

Greetings from the other side. You will get serious deja vu watching this movie.Girl goes to dance try-out but doesn't make it, so she tries her hand at burlesque. You get the standard montage of trying on clothes, along with many other cliches, such as:Hot DJ guy asks her out.Evil dancer is jealous of her Says she can't dance like that, but after a rough start, she is amazing!Her brother catches her doing burlesque, and is very upset and runs off in a huff, while she chases him to explain.And many, many more.A part that made me laugh was when she takes the stage for the first time, but has problems dancing to a slow song for no reason (people grumbling and shaking their heads at her dancing), so her DJ boyfriend changes the music to a fast beat song, and suddenly she is incredible! (And the crownd starts cheering and smiling).This movie is watchable just once because Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in it, and she is just gorgeous, and talented. However, I didn't believe her kissing and make-out scenes. There didn't seem to be any chemistry with her boyfriend. Plus you have seen this all before in movies like Coyote Ugly, or Bulesque, and they did it better.
Reviewed by fitri_small 6 / 10

Enjoyable Popcorn Flick

It was no surprise that, throughout Make It Happen's 80-minutes duration, one would find this latest dance flick (helmed by occasional music director, Darren Grant) riddled with the most tiresome and obnoxious clichés that the genre could offer across its existence. Yes, to be fair, the film seems to be borrowing each scene from similarly plotted features. Yet, in one way or another, Make It Happen seems to present all of them just that better.One of the flick's greatest and most undeniable asset would be lead Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who displays some of her best work here. It's hard not to swoon for Winstead, who switches from ferocious, limb-swinging urban dancer to ingénue, down-to-earth, corn-fed small town girl with impressive and flawless flair. She seems born for the role, radiating an unbelievable amount of charm, and drawing life into a well-written character. Despite having been supplied with a prosaic script, Winstead performs admirably well, both on and offstage.Regardless of Winstead's poetic beauty, the film lacks a substantial screenplay, and every line feels tacky and uninspired. It's safe to say that the film is no more scripted than it is choreographed. Adler's libretto felt unremarkably familiar, and, with or without hindsight, you could almost tell how the film will unfold before the lights dim down. It was fortunate that the rest of the troops, though never coming close to stealing the show (leave that to Winstead), played their - stereotypical - parts adequately, with the provocative Julissa Bermudez standing out exiguously.The film's lack of flesh on show is an affront to the cast's sensual, slinky sex appeal, and it is hard to find that the clubgoers are majorly made up of cheering females, rather than drooling guys. However, the dances are already enticing in nature, so more skin would not have been necessary, but simply more effective. Speaking of, the dance sequences are entertainingly beautiful, aided with a catchy soundtrack, and as a whole, undeniably a visual and aural delight - a testament to the eyes and ears.Make It Happen is not much a film rather than a montage of energetic dance romps, connected solely by filler sequences enlaced with drama and romance. That said, they are good sequences of drama, as Winstead's verisimilar approach to her character enlivens each of the film's dramatic scenes. The same cannot be said for the sequences of romance though. Try as they might, the pairing of Winstead and Smith lacks chemistry, and as a result, the film is forced to present a dull romance that you couldn't care for. It doesn't help that Smith's character is near unlikable - as another critic put it - "a smarmy douche".All the same, Grant's experience in the music video industry helped a lot here. Stunning cinematography entwine each scene, and the dance sequences are nothing short of being optically magnificent. Although there might not be much to entertain those with a passionate dislike of this variety, it is nevertheless a fine installment into the dance genre. Make It Happen passes as both a short, drama film entwined with great dance sequences, and an overtly long, energetic music video interweaved with filler drama scenes. However you put it, I believe Make It Happen is still a decent film.Verdict: Darren Grant has crafted an enjoyable popcorn dance flick, an improvement over the recent additions to the genre. There's still much room for improvement, but Winstead's soulful performance atones for much of the flaws. Nevertheless, its feeble screenplay and extremely predictable fade-out could not go off easily unnoticed.
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