User reviews

Okay, so it won't bring home a little golden guy. . .it's from MTV Films for crying out loud. But who says everything has to? I will say this; this movie actually had a little more substance than what I walked in expecting. I went to the theater on opening night with 5 girlfriends expecting to hear some good music and see some good choreography and scenery of Chicago--a city I dearly love. I got all of that. But I also got a glimpse of broken homes, the dynamic between a father and daughter who don't know each other, friends who've gone by the wayside that you still don't want to let go of, I could say more. Oh, and the thing that really still pisses people off though it's 2001. . .interracial relationships. I'm not saying the plot isn't a little rehashed, but there's not a whole lot that's new out there. No, it's not a great film--I give it a B, but I'd see it again. In fact I did see it again with another set of friends on Saturday night. All in all, I saw this movie with 10 friends of varying sex, age and race and all of us liked it. I think that's a pretty good showing.

Let's get one thing straight. Teen movies are starting to get unbearable. So it is a relief when something like "Save the Last Dance" comes along and offers something up that's just a little off of redundancy. There seems to be a lot going on here, with the main characters dealing with everything from death of loved ones to single parenthood to racial issues. You don't see THAT often in teen movies! But what it really comes down to is DANCE! Julia Stiles plays a former ballet dancer whose dreams are self-imposingly dashed by a tragic event, and the rest of the movie is about her re-chasing her dream in totally different circumstances than what she's used to (mainly: being the only white girl in a rough Chicago all-black neighbourhood). The movie does touch upon a lot of issues, as previously mentioned, but none of them are explored enough to give the film a lot of substance. What does make the film somewhat enjoyable is the dance sequences and the performances. There seems to be a real chemistry between Stiles (who's great in everything she does!) and Sean Patrick Thomas, who is really talented! I've only seen him in supporting roles, but this film shows he can be a leading man. The scene stealer award goes to Kerry Washington, who is so much fun in every one of her scenes. I hope to see a lot more of her in the future. IN A NUTSHELL: It's good to see a teen film that deals with more issues than just prom dates, and it will make you think, but it's not deep enough to be more than just a "dance" movie in the same vain as "Centre Stage" and "Dirty Dancing", culminating in long dance routine by Stiles, and when the routine is over, everything is resolved. Are all the issues REALLY resolved? Only in Hollywood!! Skippy's Rating: 7/10

Unless you like cheesy MTV-style teenage movies of the ilk of Flashdance, this may not be for you. If you do, it's a well-made piece of that easily digestible junk-food genre. For me, it was interesting mostly because of the dancing (fusion of hip-hop and ballet). There's some interesting performances, even if the editing is there to show the dancefloor moves to a perfection that might not have actually been achieved by Julia Stiles. The standard boy-meets-girl, gets-her-to-realise-her-dream-as-a-dancer-stuff is the stuff large buckets of popcorn were made for . . .

What do people expect in high teen movie? The theme throughout is clear; the storyline and development is convincing; the acting is natural. This movie captures the reality and reflects on the problems we face everyday in clever way. Even though the dance performance and choreography is disappointing, the movie overall is a great quality.

Save the Last Dance (2001) is a movie my daughter and I recently watched together on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a young lady whose mom passes away the night of her dance audition and misses it. The daughter is sent to live with her dad and quits dancing. As she makes new friends she is inspired to dance and be happy again.

This movie is directed by Thomas Carter (Coach Carter) and stars Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate about You), Sean Patrick Thomas (Till), Kerry Washington (Scandal), Fredro Starr (Torque) and Artel Great (Dahmer).

The best part of this movie is far and away the soundtrack. The characters are fun for the most part. Julia Stiles was solid, Kerry Washington was outstanding but Sean Patrick Thomas was a bit stiff and didn't feel authentic. The movie is well paced and I enjoyed the various circumstances and ending even if it was a bit predictable.

Overall, this is an entertaining coming of age picture that isn't perfect but worth a watch. I would score this a 7/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Save the last dance is overall a decent drama that is nostalgic to anyone my age. It does a good job capturing pop culture and relevant things during this time period. The dancing and music is also really solid.

The acting was definitely sub par and the overall story line was very flimsy and honestly just all over the place. Also the writing and some of the lines were just cringey and hard to listen/watch.

It's worth watching and is overall a decent movie for all demographics.

IMDb needs to take away this awful character requirement and just let us leave short reviews and watch more movies!!!!

Promos for Save the last Dance have been running for quite a while now and everytime i would see one i would go. "i have to see this movie", but naother part of me was going "but what if this is just another teen film". I went with my initial instinct and saw the movie and i'm glad i did. This film is so much more than just a teen film. in fact i saw a lot of adults in the audience when i saw it. Save the Last Dance really makes you think about some of the issues that are addressed in the film.

The plot revolves around Sara Johnson(Julia Stiles) who moves to a very bad part of Chicago with her dad after her mom is killed in a car accident. her mom is killed during this accident while trying to rush to see sara try out for Julliard. Sara is so heart borken by this event that she holds off on dance. When she arrives to chicago she attends a mostly black highschool and has to learn to fit in. She meets Chenille(Kerry Washington) who shows her the ropes and how to get around in school. She also meets her brother Derek(Sean Patrick Thomas)who had a shaddy past but now has dreams of going to georgetown and becoming a doctor. Soon they all begin to hang out and go to this hip hop club called steps. Soon derek is showing sara how to dance like them and she picks up on it pretty quickly. soon they meet afterschool and practice and he learns that she once did ballet and that passion for dance soon turns into a romance for the both of them. problems arise when this interacial pairing is put to the test on many occasions.

The acting by everyone is pretty good but it's the chemistry of the 2 leads that carry the film. Julia Stiles is a very talented actress who is really breaking out in the industry and i hope more adult work comes her way that will trully test her talent. Sean Patrick Thomas is also good as Derek. he has a very low key charisma and fascinating screen prescence. when these 2 are together however the film becomes so much better because their chemistry is so strong that you honestly want them to be together. The Acting by the supporting cast, especially fredro starr and Kerry Washington is also good.

The music and Dancing are a real highlight. the hip hop scenes are very fun and energetic and one of the best aspects of the film. also the scenes where derek is tryng to teach sara how to dance is when the film is at its best..

I really recommend this film because it was very enjoyable and shouldn't be written off as just naother teen flick. check it out. B+

This movie is a sort of updated Romeo and Juliet- meets- Dirty Dancing, and attempts to take on the complex issues surrounding racism and stereotypes while showcasing some fun dancing. Unfortunately, it fails on every level, thanks to a poor script that allows this movie to lapse into the many stereotypes it was hoping to dispel.

The two leads - Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas - do what they can, but nobody could sell this drivel. The writing is cringe-worthy in many, many spots. At times, even the actors seem to be unable to believe that they're actually require to say some of the things that they say. Everyone in the film besides the leads speaks in the sort of "gansta" talk that seems like a Hollywood/MTV notion of how kids really speak. Then there are the clichés: the teenage mothers, the drive-by shootings, the drug dealers and pretty much everything else you could think of.

Even the dancing - the film's supposed highlight - is poorly shot, so you don't get to see the sequences properly. Stiles insisted on doing all her own ballet, rather than using a body double - an admirable sentiment, perhaps, but someone should've noticed that it made the whole subplot of her being good enough to audition for Julliard rather unbelievable when she's shown stumbling over even simple steps. The dance scenes at the club were so chopped up that the audience is denied even the simple pleasure of some great dance scenes to break up this saccharine, eye-rolling plot.

Save The Last Dance could never have been a truly excellent movie, but it could have at least been fun and entertaining. But the writing was so terrible, it doesn't even achieve this goal.

This movie does what few movies over the past year or so have been able to do. It takes you to a place which actually exists and it takes real issues head on. Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas give real performances they do not come off as "cardboard" characters but as real human beings. The plot was simple enough to be good, it didn't require you having a past knowledge of the world of dance but yet didn't rule you out if you weren't black with a bunch of "black talk". This movie talks to teens. We are able to understand the pressures that surround us, the music we listen to, and just our world. Sure, you have your typical characters but what movie doesn't. Go see the film and then make up your mind. It is one of my favourite new films for the past few years.

After the death of her mother and some failed auditions to Julliard, a talented young girl is forced to move to her father's. There, she find a new dance style (besides the ballet) in the name of Hip-Hop, which she doesn't know anything about. With the help of some new friends, she begins to learn the new art, but not everyone is as friendly as they appear so new problems begin to find their way into her life. Together with her new boyfriend, she'll have to find a way to overcome her fears and trauma from the past, thus being able to follow her dream.

It's an interesting movie which features a big change in a girl's life and what she must do to cope with every-day problems. It's enjoyable and entertaining through its hip-hop beats and dancing but let's you down when it comes to story. The characters, although pretty well described, have the tendency to take radical decisions out of a sudden, without any logic or meaning, just to affect the course of events and generate a bit more drama. The plot is simplistic and predictable, doing nothing to impress or at least raise the bar a bit.

It's a good movie overall, especially if you enjoy music and dancing, like I do, otherwise it would be a mediocre movie which can be easily skipped.

I have seen this film in DVD shops for ages but figured it was just a chick flick so never bothered to buy it even when it went to under £3.00 Then it came on one of the movie channels so I decided to give it a try. Now I am going to buy it next time I see it. This is a very good film, well acted by everyone and with a story that covers some difficult subjects very well indeed. I thought that Julia Styles was perfect and looked very awkward when she first started dancing hip hop but became believable just as she would have done learning from scratch a new dance form. I thought her ballet was less convincing and it even looked like there was a double in there at times. But over all an excellent film and well worth a watch.

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-

Nothing in this film is original, you've seen it a dozen times, but this is more than an oddball in the new-school romcom with dance thrown in. This one is more adult, it deals with real issues and it deals with them in a not very glamorous manner ie it doesn't mince it's words. This I like. The music is good, the dancing is good and so is the script. For the life of me I struggle to see Sean Patrick Thomas (SPT) without a feather 'duster' in his hand wearing silky boxers (Cruel Intentions - le Chevalier Raphael Danceny character), which to be fair isn't a crying shame on the mind's eye, but in this he is good; convincing as the ghetto boy who wants out and gets out, and who can dance! Then comes the problem. I don't particularly admire Julia Stiles as an actress, she doesn't have enough range of facial expressions and always looks sort grumpy, blank, and reading off a cheat-sheet, so I just didn't "get" her in this - although I did like her in Ten Things I Hate About You, and she wasn't bad per se it was just that whilst impressed that she clearly did her own dancing, I didn't see passion or feeling and that took the shine off for me. Kerry Washington was notably good as Derek's (SPT) teen-mum sister, and I really liked the quiet understated performance of Terry Kinney, Sara's estranged father. Save the Last Dance balances the emotions in the film well, and in parts it does get a bit emotional as it deals with despair, bereavement, confusion, fear, jealously, anger and loyalty, joy, exuberance, acceptance and a sort of redemption.

People with interest in hip-hop should like the tunes and dancing in this, and there's enough of it, with a ballet fusion, and it's the mix of drama, romance, dance, music and realism that makes this film more than the sum of it's parts, for target-audience-teens or adults. It's not just another teen movie, this has attitude!

The first time I'd seen this film was at a theatre in Los Angeles. Went with friends who were looking to see dance or Sean Patrick Thomas or Julia Stiles or both. The audience was mix of fans of the main actors & others who were fans of of hip hop or ballet or the joy of dance or romance or curious folks like me. The whole audience fell in love with the wonderful dancing, the relationships, the visceral fight of friends to be friends. We humans too often don't bother to fight to treasure & preserve the gift of true friends. The dance, the mix of classic ballet & hiphop was joyous. The bigotry against certain economic & interracial friendships are still inherent in our all too often class & bigoted based culture. True then & now. There is a lot of truth in this film. Of hardship due to personal loss, of economic & racial divide, of the lack of acceptance & freedom to live your gifted talent for all to see. Young people who aren't the desired shade or grade, that aren't given a free ride or those that do have that free ride but don't conform to the separatism our divided culture seems to demand, have a more difficult struggle. I adore this film. You may not. I do know that it should be seen.

The plot is generic and not very creative; but it is good and entertaining.

I didn't enjoy this film at all. Maybe, because I expected it to be completely different to what it was. Julia Stiles puts in an ok performance (If anything the only good thing about the film.) and the music goes well with the film. That's about it though. I'll be nice and give it a 2/10