Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

'Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights' is surprisingly watchable. I was expecting a rather tame and boring return to the world of 'Dirty Dancing', though it actually produces a fine dance romance flick. Of course compared to the excellent and far superior original it is a downgrade, but for what it is I had a decent time watching. Romola Garai and Diego Luna have solid enough chemistry onscreen, while John Slattery offers firm support. Sela Ward is alright, not helped by how the makers chose to portray her character - Jeannie becomes quite irredeemable at one point, with the film's attempts to 'fix' that totally failing to convince. That's about it for cast positives, though it was neat to see a familiar face from the 1987 flick appear. The dance and Cuban revolution parts of the story don't mesh amazingly, a bit forced perhaps, but all in all I'd say they just narrowly made it work. I will say the dancing numbers and soundtrack aren't as good as they could've/should've been, yet I did still appreciate a few bits of music: the intro piece and the use of Wyclef Jean's 'Dance Like This', I never knew until now that that latter track was the original of Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie' - you learn something new every day!

I liked the dancing and was surprised that Patrick was in this but that's about it. The storyline was dumb and they didn't even finish there routine for the contest. So it was a pretty pointless movie.