Friday, February 27, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights'

Not Enough Spice: 'Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights' has a tad of charm, but doesn't match the chemistry of the initial formula

Sharing days on the beach and "Havana Nights," American teen Katey Miller (Romola Garai) finds a dancing partner -- and more -- in Javier Suarez (Diego Luna).

The time of your life? Not if you experienced it in 1987 watching the original "Dirty Dancing."

But there's still a bit of artificial life left in the "Dirty Dancing" formula, as "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" demonstrates.

Definitely not a sequel and not exactly a remake, "Havana Nights" adds some fiery Afro-Cuban spice to the mix, but it remains a bland recipe nonetheless.

Instead of taking place at a resort in New York's Catskill mountains during the summer of '63, "Havana Nights" shifts the action to 1958 Cuba, during the final days of dictator Fulgencio Batista's rule.

Instead of the original's awkward Baby (played by Jennifer Grey), younger daughter of a successful physician, "Havana Nights" focuses on Katey Miller ("Nicholas Nickleby's" Romola Garai), the lovely but bookish daughter of a successful executive.

When Katey's father (a sympathetic John Slattery) gets a transfer from the States to exotic Havana, the middle-class Midwestern family's lifestyle gets a snooty boost.

Instead of a cozy family home, the Millers -- rounded out by glamorous mom Jeannie (a sourball Sela Ward) and Katey's younger sister Susie ("Blue Crush's" bubbly Mika Boorem) -- find themselves ensconced in a posh luxury hotel, surrounded by social-climbing Yanks who seem strangely at home in the "Latin Las Vegas," lording it over the natives.

Because this is a "Dirty Dancing" movie, we know there'll be a hotel employee, forbidden to fraternize with guests, who's destined to get up close and personal with our gal Katey.

He's charmer Javier Suarez ("Y Tu Mama Tambien's" Diego Luna) -- son of one slain revolutionary, brother of another rabble-rouser, who serves drinks poolside, looks after his family and shows off his incendiary dance moves wherever he goes.

Faster than you can knock back a mojito, Katey and Javier pair up on the dance floor.

And just in case you need another reminder that this is a "Dirty Dancing" movie, Katey signs them up for a dance contest -- with more than a little encouragement from the hotel's resident dance instructor (alias fairy godmother), played by none other than Patrick Swayze, the original "Dirty Dancing's" hunky heartthrob.

Swayze, now 51, still dances up a storm in his few brief scenes -- which is more than we can say for Luna and Garai, neither of whom reportedly had any dance background when cast for this movie.

That explains why director Guy Ferland (an Emmy-winner for the Showtime children's special "Bang Bang, You're Dead"), cinematographer Anthony Richmond and editor Luis Colina cut away, around and between the movie's dancing duo whenever possible, desperately hoping to create the requisite illusion of dance-floor fever. Nice try, kids. But, as the legendary Fred Astaire once told his Hollywood bosses, "Either the camera will dance or I will. But both of us -- that won't work."

Even so, the movie's dance scenes -- punctuated by the soundtrack's infectious if deliberately anachronistic Latin rhythms -- turn out to be far more convincing than some of its alleged drama.

Its depiction of the Cuban revolution, for example, emerges as ludicrously simplistic -- or, more precisely, sanitized, without all that annoying bloodshed and oppression to distract from the movie's inevitable dance-and-romance focus.

As with the original, this "Dirty Dancing" was inspired by a real-life story. (This time, the experiences belong to JoAnn Jansen, the movie's co-producer and co-choreographer, who dances with Swayze in one scene.)

Trying to shoehorn those personal experiences into the movie's formulaic storyline sometimes seems too much for screenwriters Boaz Yakin (whose directorial credits range from "Remember the Titans" to "Uptown Girls") and newcomer Victoria Arch. There's no time to give characters anything but the most basic motivation -- and those characters change their minds, and their attitudes, with blinding speed.

But at least Yakin and Arch saddle the movie's players with fewer clunky speeches. (Nobody gets to say anything as remotely improbable as the original's ultimate howler, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner." I kept waiting -- and the line never came.)

Or maybe it's just that Luna and Garai, for all their stiffness on the dance floor, prove more convincing actors, negotiating their characters' awkward steps -- on and off the dance floor -- with some semblance of authority.

Chemistry, however, is another matter entirely. And for all their earnest directness, Swayze and Grey gave the original "Dirty Dancing" a romantic charge their "Havana Nights" counterparts never match.

Then again, times change. These days, it's not so easy to have the time of your life -- or even to believe such a thing is possible. In the case of "Havana Nights," seeing's not necessarily believing.