We can only hope that a film about the life of middle age feel-good frumpstar Susan Boyle hits screens soon enough to milk her Rizla thin appeal carried over from Britain’s Got Talent. The fame bestowed by our national talent shows, which half of us apparently participate in while the other half watch, is fleeting for all but a select few, and given the homogenous, characterless nature of dance crews Diversity and Flawless, the industry puppet masters had to work fast. The result is not something as lame as an exercise video or some music video cameos, although these will probably exist in the future if they don’t already. What we get is StreetDance 3D. Apparently it’s the first 3D feature to be made outside of the US, which is quite an achievement. It’s just a pity that apart from the regional English accents and Grime Pop soundtrack, this whole film feels like it was made in America.

The plot is an homage to the likes of Step Up and Save the Last Dance in the same way that a photocopier pays homage to anything you stick on the glass bit at the top. Saucy northern lass works in cockney sandwich shop while moonlighting as a street dancer with her very own crew of relentlessly perky chums. Street dancing finals loom, rehearsal space required, ballet school found, benefactor impressed, clash of culture ensues until kids work out that everyone can get along if you can get over your reciprocal snootiness by convulsing rapidly to N-Dubz. It all hangs together with its own preposterous logic, and to be fair the script is fairly inoffensive if you are willing to accept the various incongruous places to which it takes you.

I’m well aware that I’m not the target audience for this film, and to anyone who considers Lady Gaga’s video for Telephone as the height of cinematic storytelling, StreetDance will be perfectly adequate. Most people will have come to see the dancing anyway, and for the most part it is all as top notch as you might expect. Diversity only appear once, which is a real pity, and the fidgety camera moves about far too much, detracting slightly from the impact of their performance. Flawless take the role of the main rivals to our heroine’s crew, presumably because suggesting that a group containing two little kids is a nefarious if talented collective might upset the freakish back flipping dwarves. Dancing fans will be able to spot some real trained dancers as well as a couple who have appeared on non-Cowell controlled talent shows.

StreetDance 3D was exactly what I expected, and exactly what it wants to be, which is something that cannot be said about many films. With a reported budget of £4.5 million and a cast of unknowns, I think that this is as good as anything the Yanks have come up with in recent years. Depending on your opinion that is either high praise or a big ‘Do Not Watch’ sign stamped across the gaping maw of good will that this eager-to-please film flouts. It’s just a pity that the people behind it copied the questionable Step Up tradition of casting white actors in the lead roles, as it suggests that they do not feel the British public is quite ready to buy into true diversity.