SnoopyStyle Lauryn Kirk (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) from a small Indiana town goes to audition for the Chicago School of Music and Dance. They want real emotions and reject her. Her car gets towed and she is unwilling to admit defeat to her brother. She gets a place to stay from Dana (Tessa Thompson) who helps get her a bookkeeping job at the burlesque club Ruby's. Dana is one of the dancers and Russ (Riley Smith) is the music director.This is a worn-out formula. The plot is a copy of every other one of these dance movies. This has to distinguish itself with great dancing but there is nothing exceptional here. Winstead is not a big enough star to carry this although she does have that wide-eyed innocent quality. She's tall and lanky. She fits the character but the movie is not special.

Alan Wong just bought the above DVD from my local video chain outlet (ie. Video Ezy) where i'm blessed to have it in my possession as my country (ie. Malaysia) has a fairly high amount of pirated DVD's products which causes licensed video shops to have limited movie titles...well, to start off, apparently there were some deleted scenes in the movie where the producer / director decided to remove the story of Dana (ie.Tessa Thompson) getting pregnant and subsequent miscarriage....due to this removal, i guess viewers could not fully appreciate the close relationship between Lauryn (ie.Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Dana which the scriptwriter wanted to relay but was unfortunately chopped… in summary, some of the movie story reflected Mary's personal real life experiences such as being a ballerina when Lauryn was young, has taste for "off-the-beaten-track" music as composed by Russ (ie. Riley Smith) and I guess due to her holding steadfast to her personal principles, there were no revealing love or kissing scenes in the movie – hurray to Mary! Initially, I've watched this movie over YouTube but now with my TV, I could better appreciate Mary's expressive eyes and innocent looks which I guess you all guys are all infatuated to, like myself…ha..ha… happy viewing

Ally M. As another comment here pointed it out, this movie has lots in common with "Coyote Ugly". But it also reminded me of "Save the Last Dance", as the main character played there also auditioned for a famous dance school performing a dance routine that mixed classic ballet moves with modern hip hop ones. Also in both movies the main characters have lost their mothers (both of whom, if I remember this correctly 'cause it's been a while since I saw "Save the Last Dance", are dead). I actually looked rapidly at a couple of comments before deciding whether to watch "Make It Happen" or not after seeing the trailer, so I knew what to expect and I wasn't disappointed - that is because they updated the music, changed a little the location and the style, but all in all re-proposed two stories that had already been successful in the past (so we could consider it some sort of remake). From this point of view it wasn't that bad:P

Neil Welch OMG, I have so totally, like, just seen this chickflick, and I'm so "What are all these teenage girls doing at this movie?" To be fair, nobody actually talks like this in the movie, but I just feel that it probably represents the target demographic. I'm pretty certain that, as an old git, I'm not in the target demographic. Hang on to your hats, I'm going to spoiler this one bigtime.First of all, this movie has the Most Forgettable Title Of All Time. I kept trying to remember it on the way home, and I got Bring It On, Never Give Up, and several like that. All wrong. It's Make It Happen. Make It Happen. Got that? Good. Don't forget.What? You forgot already? Yeah, me too.So Lauryn heads out the 600 miles from Hickville to Chicago to audition for dance school. Now they're auditioning 2,000 kids for 20 places, so it's no surprise to us when Lauryn lasts 30 seconds before being booted off the stage. She withdraws to a coffee shop to nurse her disappointment, only for her car to be towed away in the middle of a thunderstorm. She is lucky, therefore, to encounter Dana, the young waitress, and also the Kindest And Most Trusting Person In The History Of Movies. Dana offers Lauryn, a complete stranger, not only indefinite board and lodgings back at her apartment, but also an introduction which leads to Lauryn getting a job as bookkeeper - she was a bookkeeper back home (I confess to feeling a rosy glow at this point, what with being firmly rooted in the beancounting business myself). It turns out that this job is at Ruby's (owned, confusingly, not by Ruby but by Brenda) where, we discover, Dana dances when she's not being a waitress. Having danced, Dana more or less disappears from the movie at this point. And Lauryn is saved from having to tell her brother, Russ, back home that she failed the audition.The writers of this movie have clearly made more than one visit to the Cliché Mine, and have emerged loaded down with swag on each visit because, as I am sure you are expecting, the next thing to happen is for Brenda to be faced with no dancers, following which Lauryn steps into the breach and is a sensation.A word about the dancing at Ruby's. This is a club which features dancing, and Brenda explains that she's after a different sort of dancing. She sure is. It is raunchy dancing which isn't raunchy. It's clearly intended to be raunchy, but the movie is PG, which means any little kid can see it. So "raunchy" translates as "mildly suggestive." When the dancer rips off her skirt, there's another smaller skirt below it, that kind of thing. But the crowd appear to love it, whistling and whooping like nobody's business. Go figure.So Lauryn does a bit of dancing for Brenda, and a romance starts with the bloke who does the music: he encourages Lauryn to go for the special extra one-off additional audition for a further 2 places at dance school which just became vacant. Further clichés heave into view...But before contact is made with them, Lauryn's brother Russ arrives at Ruby's, and leaves in some distress that Lauryn is dancing, fully clothed, in a mildly suggestive manner. During the argument which follows, he tells her that the garage - their late father's - is just about to go broke, and he blames her for their father's death. Stricken with guilt, Lauryn returns to start bookkeeping like mad at the garage.But Russ realises that he shouldn't have emotionally blackmailed his sister into giving up her dream just to save the garage, and packs her off to the audition. As she arrives, the musical boyfriend gives her a new track he's just finished (it turns out to be the unfinished one she'd encouraged him to finish earlier, no surprise there then). She's too late for the emergency extra auditions, but she throws a completely out of character wobbly and dances anyway. I was very impressed with this - dancing perfectly to a piece of music she hadn't heard before, said dance incorporating things like the piano and steps which are on stage (the locations of which she couldn't have anticipated).So it will come as no surprise to you to learn - guess what - that she passes the audition. The garage goes down the tubes, but what the hey.This movie was drivel. Recycled drivel, at that. But I kind of enjoyed it anyway. Lauryn is a pretty, personable girl (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Bruce Willis' daughter in Die Hard 4) and quite attractively drawn as a character. She dances OK, too, although the dance sequences don't have the vitality and dynamism of those in, say, Fame, Footloose, Dirty Dancing etc.Don't expect to be surprised at any point, though. Especially after you've read this!