‘Dance Flick’ is crude and clueless comedy

By JOHN ANDERSON

We live in desperate times. But no one’s desperate enough to laugh at “Dance Flick.” Which is sort of encouraging, no?

This cluelessly crude comedy finds the Wayans brothers — and sons and nephews — concocting another lame-o parody in the style of their “Scary Movie” franchise, which collects, inflates and blows up all the conceits of a particular genre.

That there are enough dance-genre movies to have mock-able tropes and conventions is probably the funniest thing about “Dance Flick,” which never gets beyond the tired, lazy, sophomoric (to say nothing of glandular) humor of “Meet the Spartans” and “Disaster Movie.” Even seagulls have the sense to know that when they’ve scavenged enough at one site, it’s time to move on, dudes. The Wayans keep mining the same trash heap.

There’s a heroine, Megan (Soshana Bush), a best friend, Charity (the terrific Essence Atkins), a would-be boyfriend (Damon Wayans Jr.) and a lot of stuff beyond description. We get bits of “’Save the Last Dance,” “Take the Lead,” “Stomp the Yard,” “Roll Bounce,” “High School Musical 3” and even references to such chestnuts as “Flashdance.”

It’s symptomatic of the general poverty of Wayans thought (Damien Dante Wayans directs; Keenen Ivory, Shawn, Marlon, Craig and Damien Dante wrote this thing) that a takeoff on “Fame,” titled “Gay” (”I will be gay forever ... “) would be presumed to be hilarious. It just feels old. But so does this shtick.

‘DANCE FLICK’

Grade: D

Director: Damien Dante Wayans

Length: 1:23

Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, and language