Honey: Critic Reviews

Don't mistake this for A Chorus Line 2: Electric Boogaloo. Honey is fixated on center-stage cameos at the expense of its too-brief dance sequences, and the idol worship undermines the film's anti-bling moralizing.

Honey brings out the wholesome, affirmative side of the hip-hop aesthetic without being overly preachy, and it offers a winningly utopian view of show-business success without real costs or compromises.

Honey is in the harmlessly junky 'let's put on a show' tradition of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, minus electricity but with a budget for supporting-cast navel rings that 1984's break-dance sequel certainly didn't have.

Honey's a little too darling for reality.

Evokes a warmed-over Fox TV special.

Neither hot nor square, it's as simple and earnest as any after-school special and as cameo-laden as any rap video.

The star-is-born trajectory nourishes some howlers ... as well as a thumpingly unsubtle portrayal of the creative process.

Honey is a by-the- numbers, let's-put- on-a-show quasi-musical that has absolutely nothing going for it, except Alba.

A disjointed, unmoving affair.

Scene after scene is either a music-video shoot or a dance scene shot like a music video. The result is a film that's all flashdance and no substance.

Honey passes the time nicely up to that last dance and doesn't trip when it gets there.

Honey doesn't have a shred of originality (except for the high-energy choreography), but there's something fundamentally reassuring about a movie that respects ancient formulas; it's like a landmark preservation program.

Has the shelf life of a dented milk carton.

By no means is this a good movie, but it's warmed by the solar energy of its star, who surely deserves better than this formula empowerment flick.

Nothing about the movie feels fresh or new or energized, which would have at least helped excuse the cliches. Instead, it just wallows in them, all to a throbbing hip-hop score.

Flavorless blender-mix of dance movie cliches draws from the stagnant well of everything from Flashdance to Save the Last Dance.

Its by-the- numbers plot is depressingly familiar, and each line of dialogue is so predictable that the script could have been generated by a computer.

It's sweet, but that's not real honey you're tasting. It's more like saccharine.

Cheerful, unlikely and featherweight, Honey is nevertheless charmingly optimistic and refreshingly earnest.

Overproduced and underwhelming.

There's an entertainingly ludicrous movie lurking somewhere inside of the ludicrous, mediocre one this actually is.

The girl's gotta dance -- and meets little resistance -- in this hip-hop take on an age-old theme.

As sweet and undemanding as its name, Honey goes down smooth and simple.

Honey is just dumb but teens love it.