Boring, long, and too preachy.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Normally, I try to stay away from movies that are just about dancing. The one exception for this moment is this film, Save the Last Dance. The movie is more than just dancing, it is a human story that explores themes such as passion, family tragedy, and interracial love. I found the latter part interesting because it is relatively uncommon to see in movies and I thought that part in the movie worked very well. As for the dancing, it's not too bad and the choreography is halfway decent. Thomas Carter's film is about a girl named Sara who dreams to be a ballerina are shattered when an unfortunate family tragedy occurs and she is forced to move to the other side of town, where the town is predominantly black. Sara is able to befriend Chenille, whom in turn introduces her to her brother, Derek. Together, Sara and Derek work together to help Sara train for a dance audition for Jubilee. The acting was not too bad. Julia Stiles handled the dramatic part effectively, although I'm not sure if she makes for a talented dancer, especially in hip-hop dance. Sean Patrick Thomas does a solid job as Derek and I really liked Kerry Washington in her role as Chenille. Overall, Save the Last Dance is nowhere close to a great movie, but it does have some entertaining moments. In particular, the dance moments are quite effective, although not perfect. The drama was handled well and I quite liked the beginning of the film the best, although the narrative seems to stumble midway. This is not a bad film though. My Grade: B-

Save the Last Dance is a good romantic movie, and even though the characters are teens, the subjects treated apply as much for adults. So, it's not teen-centric. I'd say most guys will find their groove in it. There are beautiful women, hot dancing, and testosterone fueled conflicts. The romance is real, there's no Hollywood tricks, all of this could happen in real life.The acting is excellent. Julia Stiles really got established in the eyes of a wider audience with this film, and for good reasons. Sean Patrick Thomas is solid. And Kerry Washington seems a natural as Chenille.The story is touching and very interesting. The scenario doesn't run in a straight line, and it touches lot of subjects. The hip-hop and classical music is great. The dialogs are nice and smooth, realistic. The characters have nice emotional depth to them, some complexities, and good backgrounds.Quite frankly, I gave only 8* because there are other movies I'd rather watch before this one, but I can't really find anything wrong with it.If you want to see a simple touching romance that will have men interested to watch, this is for you.

Just another Hollywood propaganda movie where all the whites are helpless boring nerds, and the white woman needs to be rescued by the hip, handsome black man. Fortunately, the only white women to fall for this in real life are usually fat or dumb. This movie probably responsible for so much race-mixing (and, by extension, fatherless homes, wife beating, etc.,) I truly believe that the producers of this film ought to be imprisoned. I will never see a movie with Julia Stiles in it again. Hollywood will not stop pumping these stupid movies out. If they're not directly promoting race-mixing, then they are at least promoting the "blacks are so cool and so hip, and whites are just nerds" image. It's just sick.

O.K let me start by saying i'm 18years old, and some may not class that as a "MATURE" viewer but its definitely older than i was when this movie first came out which was 10 YEARS OLD! now i remember watching this movie with a bunch of friends at a friends house and LOVING it, by the time i was 12 this movie was comfortably my favorite and i still have it on DVD. However i just saw it come on t.v recently and after watching it although i still thought it was a solid movie it no longer holds the TOP SPOT for me and i wish they had focused a little more on Chenille's situation, Kerry Washington is one hell of an actress especially in the scenes with her "baby daddy", but i understand it can only be so long. I still like my fav scenes that i did before i.e fight scene with Nikki and Sarah, all the club scenes and Sarah's dramatic speech about ballet and of course her audition dance. All in all i'd say it's a great movie but i'm not as enthusiastic as i was when i was younger...