I didn't go into "Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights" with high expectations. In fact, I went in with the lowest expectations I could muster. How could you build on one of the best and most-watched chick flicks of all time? How could you recreate chemistry like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey's illicit romance and "[I've Had] the Time of My Life" theme song?
Well, "Havana Nights" replaces "[I've Had] the Time of My Life" with the thumping beats of Las Orichas' "Represent, Cuba," and sadly enough, the soundtrack is the best part of the movie. The movie throws in a jumble of Cuban or Cuban-influenced music as well as the usual movie soundtrack gimmicks, such as a song called "Dirty Dancing" by Black Eyed Peas. A mix of hip-hop and salsa, the soundtrack is a better use of your dollars than seeing this movie. Or, of course, you could go to the movie, close your eyes, and try to filter the fantastic music away from the goofiest and cheesiest lines I've ever heard.
The basic premise is that an American girl, Katey Miller, and her family move to Havana, Cuba, on the eve of the Revolution. Her family expects her to move in their well-to-do, country-club circles, but Katey is attracted to a local boy, Javier, who works at the hotel where they are staying. Enticed by Javier's sensual Latin dancing, Katey, who is classically trained in ballroom dancing, asks Javier to teach her Latin dancing and soon becomes caught up in a romance with him, who is fired from the hotel by her father's boss. Meanwhile, Katey is invited to join a dance competition by Patrick Swayze in the scariest cameo recent cinema history has ever seen.
In fact, Swayze is a big drawing power for "Havana Nights." When Katey passed a room and the audience could hear Swayze's voice, audience members commented excitedly, "That sounded like Patrick Swayze!" Sure enough, the camera focused on Swayze's familiar physique and effortless dance moves as he twirled a woman at the end of a dance class. Then he turned his head to look at Katey, and half the audience gasped. Swayze has not aged well, or, it seems, naturally.
He does not look like any variation on the Swayze who romanced Jennifer Grey in "Dirty Dancing" and captured the hearts of women of all ages. He has obviously undergone some very bad plastic surgery, and the best description I can muster is that he looks like a creepy old woman without make up. His ears have grown uncommonly large, and the director seemed to think that covering him with sweat and squeezing him into a black dance suit and two-inch heeled dancing shoes would somehow amp up any sort of appeal he might still retain. Later scenes showing Swayze and Katey dancing around his studio are meant to be sentimental, perhaps, but they only turn out frightening and wrong.
When Katey convinces Javier to enter the dance competition with her, they embark on a montage of "learning the moves" scenes that attempts to be cute and romantic at the same time. It achieves neither. First, leads Romola Garai and Diego Luna have no chemistry, showcase mediocre dance skills and aren't very good actors. Furthermore, Garai seems strikingly large and tall next to Luna and each time the movie shows him twirling her around, it seems that he might fall over any second under weight.
In fact, several times, the movie shows them dancing on the beach and falling into the sand, with Garai on the bottom so Luna would not be crushed. It isn't that Garai is a big-boned girl but that Luna seems to have the build of a 14-year-old boy and a distinctly disconcerting face structure as well. You would think that the very first things a director of a second-rate sequel would look for would be attractive leads with feasible chemistry.
Most unsettling, however, was Katey's transformation from a Radcliffe-bound, family-oriented scholar to a disobedient, scantily-clad bad dancer willing to give up her college aspirations to be with a boy she barely knows. I shouldn't spoil the ending in case anyone is masochistic enough to see this movie, but viewers should know that the two mismatched lovebirds end up in each other's arms with corny parting dialogue and yet another dance scene that looks like all their others together. Succinctly put, the best part of the ending is that the movie is over.
What you must take away from the hellish and time-wasting experience of "Havana Nights" are profound lines, such as the exchange between Katey and her mother, played by Sela Ward, who looks absolutely nothing like her daughter and raises questions of possible adoption in Katey's past. Ward, combing through knots in Katey's hair wisely advises her that when life gets hard, you can hide under the bed, or you can "work through the knots." The audience bursting into snorts and sarcastic comments on the genius of the dialogue was the second best part of the movie.
Indeed, recreating the romance of the 1960s Catskills takes a lot more than sand, sun, great music, a meandering plot and mediocre leads.
