A New Beat picks up twelve years after the original. This time the movie finds itself centered around a talented but overly ambitious young female freshman, Dani (Alexandria Shipp), new to Atlanta A&T's marching band and drum section instead of the hotheaded but equally talented male lead Nick Cannon played in the original.
Let me start off by saying I really liked the first Drumline, and I didn't expect a sequel that actually lived up to the first one, especially given its "made for TV" status. However, since I was in the marching band myself while in college and high school, as you can imagine, I absolutely love movies centered around marching bands. This genre is so small, I'm willing to give every single film a chance, but while A New Beat was certainly entertaining, it just wasn't memorable. The biggest thing that holds A New Beat back is while various aspects of the main characters' lives were different enough that we didn't get exactly the same movie, most of the main plot elements were just a rehash of the first film. I just felt like I was watching a remake created solely for the purpose of showing what this movie would look like if shot in the social media/smartphone era. Let's talk about some other aspects of the film
Alexandria Shipp does a decent job as the lead. Leonard Roberts reprises his role as Sean Taylor. This time he's back as the head band director. Not too bad considering how perfect Orlando Jones was as the band director in the first film. Nick Cannon also reprises his role for a much less significant part. Truthfully, his part could have been written out and it wouldn't have had any impact on the film whatsoever. The rest of the cast? Clearly one of the most beautiful set of co-starts they could find; however, the acting itself left much to be desired. It all just seemed so forced and stale – and the goes for the movie overall. The scenes and camera-work for the band performances were underwhelming and the dialogue, script, and plot were indicative of a "made for TV" movie. I'm actually a little surprised at how mediocre the band performance scenes came out considering the director, Bille Woodruff, specializes in R&B/hip-hop music videos. In addition, the tension and drama Woodruff and the writers tried to create just didn't resonate with me - very over the top and unconvincing.
The biggest thing lacking though from this movie was the band itself - not nearly enough performances. They placed too much emphasis on the backstory. I mean, don't get me wrong, I wish more filmmakers would spend additional time on character development; however, the band aspects of this film just felt much less significant this time around. Not to mention, when you have this much backstory and the characters still seem one dimensional, then someone has failed.
All that said, I still enjoyed watching A New Beat. It didn't have the charm and originality of the first film, being more of a remake with a female lead rather than a sequel. But seeing this remade from the perspective of the social media/smartphone era was interesting. As you might already have guessed, text messaging is used heavily in the film and the communications of our characters are nicely plastered across the screen for viewers to see. We also get to see spectators in the stands filming band performances on their smartphones; the main characters can check out their roommates on Facebook prior to meeting for the first time on campus; and the fight that breaks out after the first drumline challenge ends up on YouTube and probably WorldStar HipHop. (Rolls eyes
) A lot has changed in the real world since the first movie just 12 years prior to the sequel. Unfortunately, not enough of the movie plot itself has changed to make this truly a "new beat". It gets a "generous" 5 stars simply because I love this genre – oh, and did I mention how attractive the cast members are?
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