Save the Last Dance

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Sure, you've seen some of these moves before, but Save the Last Dance triumphantly passes the audition.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Above all, this is a movie where the characters ask the same questions we do: They're as smart about themselves as we are.

Film.com Gemma Files

Breaks virtually no new narrative ground, yet treads the familiar territory it does cover with grace, style, wit and fun.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This is a spirited, dirty dance between the polished inauthenticity of Hollywood romance-musicals and hip-hop's central tenet: keeping it real. It's an intriguing combination, if nothing else.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The story comes full circle in a way that might seem overly schematic did it not have the courage to wear its heart on its sleeve without losing its head.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The most traditional of Hollywood romances, in that it's resolutely about nice people with nice problems.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

While it flirts with "After School Special"-ness, at least has the courage to address racial and cultural cliches with a degree of honesty.

Miami Herald Sara Wildberger

All in all it's a decent, well-put-together romantic drama to hold hands to on the weekend.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

This sweet-tempered retelling of "Romeo and Juliet," which substitutes uplift for tragedy, gives off enough energy and light that the audience wants to believe in it even if society's impacted prejudices continue to say otherwise.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

It's pretty good, really.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Bland but poised.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Carter can't sidestep the script's cliches, so he wisely cuts to the fancy footwork whenever possible.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's about as routine a movie as they come, but it features plenty of endorphin-releasing hip-hop choreography as Derek teaches Sara to get jiggy with it.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This teenage interracial romance runs hot and cold, sweet and silly, with many more fits than starts.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

For all its dumb clichés it offers the basic appeal of teen movies: the pleasure of watching kids be kids, acting as they do among themselves instead of how parents and teachers expect them to act.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Takes its cues from the musical dramas of the '70s, but this otherwise engaging young-adult romance never quite catches Saturday night fever.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

The disjointed plotting and afterschool-special dialogue offer scant opportunity for the charismatic leading duo to work up much chemistry.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Thomas' easygoing warmth helps to melt Stiles' icy veneer, and one of Dance's few pleasures is an extended musical segment where she tries to ape his homeboy posturings.

Variety Robert Koehler

Grounded in bedrock formula and earnestness.

San Francisco Chronicle Wesley Morris

The result is more like an epic "After School Special" -- preachy, runny and oddly warm.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An utterly formulaic, teen-oriented romance whose greatest asset is charming leads Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

This wan, formulaic teen movie from ''Metro'' director Thomas Carter is afraid to pump up the volume on its own interracial, hip hop Romeo and Juliet story, lest it challenge even one sedated viewer or disturb the peace.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Filled with too many issues -- along with young motherhood, street gangs, city life, sex, peer pressure, grief and, oh yes, dancing, which is nearly lost in so many poorly written subplots.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Recycles every cliché of the genre to sleep-inducing effect.