Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

It’s not a sequel, and it’s not really a prequel, but it still has the pointless and superficial qualities that such films tend to have. In what director Guy Ferland is calling "a companion piece" to the 1987 romantic hit Dirty Dancing, Romola Garai assumes Baby’s role as Katey, the pretentious brainiac who goes with her family to the Club Med of Cuba instead of to the upper-class resort in the Catskills. Regardless of the new location, the Baby/Katey hybrid still engages in some sultry steps with a sexy single guy. In this case, Hispanic heartthrob Diego Luna plays the Johnny Castle of Cuba and teaches uncoordinated Katey sensual salsa steps for the clichéd ultimate dance-off finale. Writer Ronald Bass follows the same predictable formula that the original managed to make work. However, with the addition of random politics and the ridiculous inclusion of Patrick Swayze in an embarrassing cameo, there’s nothing about this "companion piece" that works.