Chris Stokes has finally come up with the solution to the problem of music video directors being ill suited to helm feature films: create a feature-length music video.
If you take away the clothes, music, MTV-style editing, pretty girls and snide, hipper-than-thou attitude, you aren't left with much that resembles an actual motion picture. It's a 90-minute commercial masquerading as a movie, designed to sell CD soundtracks to impressionable teenagers.
Before Stokes somehow got a career as a filmmaker (he also directed House Party 4), he was the manager of several R&B and hip-hop groups, including B2K, whose members comprise much of the cast here. It's not hard to make the leap that all involved saw this project as an opportunity to promote the group, as opposed to being inspired by any burning desire to tell an interesting story.
The plot, if you can call it that, centers around two friends, Elgin and David (Houston and Grandberry) who lead their "crew" of street dancers in battles against other crews for large amounts of cash, and more importantly, the ad campaign tells us, respect. Presided over by Steve Harvey, the winner is decided by using the ultra-scientific applause-o-meter.
Elgin and David's friendship is strained after they are beaten at their own game by a crew of white boys to the tune of $5,000. Elgin also is unnerved when David starts dating his younger sister (Freeman). Throw in a ridiculous subplot involving the boys delivering drugs and it's the stuff all bad melodrama is made of.
A chance for redemption comes in the form of a dance contest where the winner will receive $50,000 and the opportunity to star in Lil' Kim's new video. The outcome of the contest is rather obvious, not because of plot conventions but because I have a hard time picturing a bunch of white boys bouncing up and down in a Lil' Kim video.
I can complain about the clichéd plot all I want, but it's just a device to showcase the dance moves. What I hate most is that You Got Served is something far less enduring than a movie; it's a fashion statement.