A Year of Garbage Movies #73: You Got Served
Nov 6 · 5 min read
On THE STREETS of Los Angeles (well, really just one street), B2K must defend their dancing title from Sum 41. Or something
So I kind of wish I’d seen this one before “Dance Flick”, since the latter is basically a direct spoof of this. It wouldn’t have made Dance Flick any more enjoyable, I just would have had more context for why people were peeing on each other in the opening scene.
“You Got Served” may be the most mainstream movie to wind up on this list, which raises the question of how this film ever became popular. Nobody in this movie can act, and by the 10 minute mark you pretty much know how things are going to play out.
So, about this dumb-ass movie:
- A “suburban” dance crew calls out the protagonists by sending them a VHS tape challenging them to a $5000 dance-off. You can tell they are bad guys because he has frosted spikes and a goatee. Obviously, they have stolen their dance moves. “Bring it On” came out 4 years before this movie.
- A cute kid shows up and wants to be part of the crew. We are reminded repeatedly that “he’s like a little brother to me” and that he should “stop hanging with his bad news friends”. When they make him the mascot, they basically give him a jersey that says “I will be shot before the end of the second act”
- Who the hell is this 5 year old hanging out with that he gets shot during a drive-by. I don’t mean he is the target of a drive-by. He’s in the car with the shooters. I guess we needed a harsh reminder that this is THE STREETS.
- At the beginning of the movie, one of the main characters remarks on how his sister got into an Ivy League school but can’t afford to go yet. This might seem impressive, but then you realize as the movie wears on that she’s literally the only character ever seen attending school. She could have had a 0.5 GPA and still been the valedictorian.
- THE STREETS are actually a temporal anomaly in reality, wherein the residents are trapped in an endless loop of dance -> basketball -> deliver drugs -> diner -> dance, etc…
- There is a single restaurant in LA, which everyone attends constantly. Naturally this is the best place to take your friend’s sister whom you are secretly dating. Several times, in fact.
- A main character gets jumped while delivering a large bag full of drugs. He now owes money to the local drug lord. Given the panic that ensues when he is unable to pay up and the threats of leg-breaking, we must assume that it is a lot of money. However, they aim to pay it off by winning a $50,000 in an MTV (HA!) dance competition. There are around 10 people in the dance crew. Assuming an even cut for everyone, he could walk away with 5K. He intends to also pay off his grandma, who gave him a $1500 loan earlier, so we’re down to $3500K. Earlier the other friend had offered to cut him in for enough to pay off his debts if he won, so it’s probably safe to say that the amount owed is probably less than $1000. Given that none of the characters attend school, it’s also very possible that they just can’t do math, but it seems like our guy should have been more worried about breaking his legs from falling in one of the movie’s plot holes than from getting roughed up by gangsters.
- After a tie during the final dance-off, Lil’ Kim agrees to have the final dance “take it to THE STREETS, dirty and grimy”. “No rules” is said a few times, I believe. You might think this means, I dunno, going outside, or at least back to the first dank warehouse venue, or a change in the rules, or a knife fight, or SOMETHING but it doesn’t. They literally just add a couple more people to the squad. The “suburban” crew looks confused by this too, since they keep looking at each other like “what does the cul-de-sac have to do with dancing?”
- Between the actors and their characters names, there are three people with the first name Lil’
- I’m sorry, I can’t leave the drug-lord and money thing alone. He gave him a giant-ass sack full of some unknown substance. Unless he’s been pop-locking bottles of cough syrup all over the ghetto, that had to have been more than a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise. On the other hand, Steve Harvey’s grand scheme for making the problem go away was literally “get my cop friend to tell him to leave the kid alone” maybe everyone else knew that wasn’t really that big of a deal and Emerald (drug-lord) just wanted to make an example out of him
- Why the hell am I thinking this deeply about it when the writers obviously didn’t?

Pros:
- One of the prizes for winning is that you get to be in a Lil’ Kim music video. This is nostalgia fuel for a time when MTV actually made music videos
- I am an old man and much of the dancing looked like the effects of a severe musculoskeletal disorder to me, but I have been told by cooler people that it is good.
- Steve Harvey gives a genuine heartfelt reminder to the competing dance crews that even though they’re competing for 5K, money isn’t important, friendship is. Nevermind that these guys haven’t even met before, Steve Harvey is here to deliver some valuable morals…right before he has his friend show off his Glock to ensure they remain friends. I found this very funny.
Cons:
- I had a genuine crisis when I started writing this because I couldn’t decide if the antagonist looked like Sum 41, skinny Guy Fieri, electrocuted Shaggy from Scooby Doo, or a suburban weed dealer that went Super Saiyan.
- Spawned a slew of garbage dance movies, which in turn spawned Dance Flick
- I had to proof-read this several times to make sure I didn’t call it “Step Up” at any point.
