Like Gene Kelly, the teens in "Step Up 2 the Streets" are dancin' in the rain. But they're executing moves that Kelly, as athletic as he was, never dreamed about.

When they say they're taking it to the streets, they mean -- dun-dun-duhn -- "The Streets," Baltimore's biggest, most electrically charged street-dancing battle. It has its own set of rules, its own crews or teams, and notification by text message; there's no money at stake, just bragging rights and pride. Make that Pride.

"Step Up 2 the Streets" is the sequel to "Step Up," the 2006 movie starring Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan as a poor boy and privileged girl who are a match made in Maryland School of the Arts heaven. The school setting is the same this time, but the boy, Chase (Robert Hoffman), is the wealthy one and Andie (Briana Evigan) the streetwise dancer.

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'Step Up 2 the Streets'

2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

• Starring: Briana Evigan, Robert Hoffman.
• Rating: PG-13 for language, some suggestive material and brief violence.
• Web site:myspace.com/stepupmovie

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Because all members of the Writers Guild of America are required to make one lead in such movies orphaned, foster children or grieving in some way, Andie lost her mother to cancer and no father is in the picture. She's living with a family friend who is about to ship her to an aunt in Texas to straighten her out.

But, thanks to an old pal from the first movie, she lands an audition at MSA and the chance to transfer her street-dancing moves to the dance studio. That's where she and Chase decide to assemble their own crew of seeming misfits and lock horns with Andie's old crew, which takes its street dancing very seriously.

"Step Up 2 the Streets," directed by Jon M. Chu and partially choreographed by Nadine "Hi Hat" Ruffin (who just did "How She Move"), is better than "Step Up" in one regard. Although punches are thrown in one scene, no guns are drawn and no one is killed.

However, the characters are drawn like cardboard cutouts, the lessons are not novel ("It's not about what you got, it's about what you make of it!") and you can predict the outcome from the get-go.

But the dancing, with its headstands, acrobatics and mix of popping, locking and breaking, is as energetic as the movie's soundtrack mix of rap, hip-hop and R&B. And not designed for anyone who hears the word dancing and flashes on Gene Kelly in a downpour or Fred Astaire in a tuxedo.