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"Step Up 2 the Streets" takes steps to distinguish itself from the original "Step Up."

It's about a troubled teen girl from Baltimore, not a troubled teen guy. The female lead is a dope street dancer, not a disciplined ballet dancer.

The new film lets romance simmer in the background as it stresses the importance of forming and being loyal to a family. The original included steamy chemistry that, left unchecked, might lead to physically making a family.

All that aside, the same attributes that made "Step Up" a hit 18 months ago come together in similar fashion in "Step Up 2 the Streets." Hot girl, ripped guy, dazzling dancing, irresistible music, shattered traditions — it's all on the menu again.

As before, the Maryland School of the Arts connects the key characters. Andie (Briana Evigan) is proving to be too much for her guardian, Sarah (Sonja Sohn), who was Andie's late mother's best friend. Only intervention by Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum of "Step Up"), neighborhood boy made good, convinces Sarah to give Andie another chance. If she can get into MSA and apply herself, Andie won't be shipped off to her aunt in Texas.

Andie auditions and is accepted to MSA, but that means she no longer has time to rehearse with her dance crew, which is training for the underground competition known as the Streets. Unwilling to cross crew leader Tuck (Black Thomas), Andie's best friends, Felicia (Telisha Shaw) and Missy (Danielle Polanco), seem to turn their backs on her.

At MSA, Andie sparks the interest of Chase (Robert Hoffman), the best and most popular student and brother of the school's hard-nosed director, Blake (Will Kemp), an alumnus who had a stellar dance career. Andie befriends goofy Moose (Adam G. Sevani) and keeps Chase at a distance.

But Chase is wowed by Andie's dancing, and eventually he talks her into helping him form a crew that can perform in the Streets.

The cast brings a wealth of dance talent. Hoffman ("She's the Man") is convincing both in ballet and in street, and the "kids" on his crew are amazing.

Evigan, daughter of actor Greg Evigan, seems more limited in her dance moves. Her acting consists of grins, scowls and baring her midriff, and her resemblance to Lindsay Lohan is distracting.

Written by Toni Ann Johnson and Karen Barna, "SU2" has even more clichés than the first film did. And it doesn't help that this dance flick hits theaters so soon after the fresh "How She Move," which focused on similarly hungry step dancers.

But the target audience won't care about the conventional formula. All that matters is that director Jon M. Chu and his choreographers turn "Step Up 2" into an explosive mash-up of break-dancing, stepping and acrobatics set to an addictive soundtrack of hip-hop artistry.

Chu doesn't just take the energy to the streets. He spills it off the screen.