Tyler takes the rap when he and his friends are caught vandalizing a school auditorium. His punishment is 200 hours of community service doing janitorial work at the school, which happens to be the ultra-elite Maryland High School of the Arts.
Once he's installed at the school, he soon falls for a privileged ballet dancer (Jenna Dewan) - and the only thing standing in the way of her obviously brilliant future is finding a great dance partner for her senior showcase. The guy with whom she has been practicing for months has sprained his ankle and needs to find a new partner, fast.

Tyler watches with mild interest as Nora desperately looks for another student who can keep up with her on the dance floor. She then sees him busting a few moves with some buddies in the parking lot, and with no one else available - except, uhm, a school full of dancers - she lets him rehearse with her.

While Duane Adler and Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay is juvenile at best, and Tatum's African-American impersonation gets irritating early on, nobody goes to a movie like "Step Up" expecting great acting. There's still an appealing sweetness in the story of dreams; Fletcher, who worked primarily as a choreographer, keeps her camera focused on the moves. She sneaks in the dancing whenever she can - off hoods of cars, in backyards, at clubs and dance studios. She even has some fun with Tyler trying to make his moves as his baggy jeans droop off his hips.