Honey is a tired remake of the usual dance movies.

The story is so sugary sweet your teeth will ache afterward and the film is often technically amateurish.

But director Bille Woodruff is a music video veteran -- so Honey has some song-and-dance sequences that will knock your socks off. That, and the passion with which the camera loves Jessica Alba, are almost enough to make this one worthwhile.

Honey is a rags to riches story about a hard-working young dancer (Alba) who wants to show her moves to the world.

Honey, who is a bit of a goodie-two-shoes, holds down two jobs and works with kids at the community centre. Her hard work pays off when she gets discovered by a big music video director, and all her hopes and dreams start to come true.

Or do they? The world of glitz and success keeps her from friends and family, and then the director who has boosted her career turns out to be a manipulative slime. Gee. What a surprise. Anyway, Honey has to strike out on her own, be true to herself, do it for the children, pursue her dreams, and take part in any other cliche you can think of -- they're all here.

Standing around in all this are Mekhi Phifer as a local barber who loves Honey and Lil' Romeo as a kid torn between the powers of good and evil. Honey (hint: she's on the side of good) gets him to dance.

Joy Bryant, an actress quite capable of turning dross into gold, shines in Honey in a smallish part as the best friend. Theatre great Lonette McKee turns up as Honey's mom. A charismatic child actor named Zachary Williams steals every second of screen time he gets. They all do a reasonable job with what they're given, which isn't much.

Only when Honey veers into the dance segments does the film really come alive, and then it sings.

So who should see it? For starters, Honey was filmed in Toronto, so it has a built-in audience of local dancers, DJs and hip-hop cognoscenti.

And it's probably just the thing for young (like, age nine or 10) dance students, so it's probably worth mentioning that Honey has almost nothing in it that parents might fear in the way of sex, drugs or bad language.

For a story meant to be set in the mean streets of the Bronx, that's a bit odd, but never mind. Honey is harmless fluff.

(This film is rated PG)

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