Save the Last Dance 2 (2006) Reviews

• This Writer Should Not Be Allowed to Hold a Pen

  nimbus-chick2008-07-16

  There were some good moments in STLD2, sure, but the few good ones could not make up for all the bad. In the first five minutes of this movie we saw an interview with no context (Who was interviewing her? Why? Documentary?) and a misfired Hamlet joke. On the first appearance of the room mate, Zoe (who even has a cliché quirky brunette name) we see that the writer clearly doesn't even have the basic knowledge required for his craft. Zoe's trunk is full of random things that are nothing but random and there to paint her as the crazy whore drama kid. Thanks. I appreciate you stereotyping my people. When the skull was picked up and Zoe said that it was Hamlet, I almost turned off the movie. I don't think you can call yourself a writer if you are not familiar with the masterpiece of English speaking literature. THE SKULL IS YORIK! The rest of the movie follows in this way. Clichés, bad lines and jokes that don't quite make sense in context. There was a good moment where Miles (Columbus Short, the redeeming actor in this movie) plays the sound of ice cracking. That was pretty much it. The dances weren't that good and half of them were cut creatively so they didn't really have to show them. Half of one girl's dance was inter cut with the exact same "oh puh-lease" expression that the main actress kept pulling. It was painful. The movie didn't address the race issue (which was half the point of its predecessor) and the conflict was a creation of the main character's head where she decided her boyfriend lied to her when in fact he never did. They never danced together either. So why was it a sequel? The movie also had an annoyingly self righteous message about conservatory schools. They painted the elite elimination of students in the lower half of the class as cruel. Sorry, in the real world you DON'T get an A for effort and people CHOOSE to go to conservatory schools for the elitism and the status they can achieve if they make it through. Boohoo, life isn't fair. At the end of the movie I really hated the main character. She pretty much spat in the face of her teacher by refusing to go to the party. Instead of being grateful for her amazing opportunity and letting the old bird show her off for a few hours and then quitting ballet the next day, she had to embarrass her. It's not her fault you don't wanna be a ballerina! In the end I think someone else wrote Miles (Columbus Short) and then they hired a fifteen year old girl wannabe dancer to write the rest of the movie. Way to go. When there are so many talented writers who are struggling to make ends meet, you go and pay someone who should probably go be an accountant.

• Terrible!!

  leanne_hoadley19882007-02-23

  This film has got to be one of the worst sequels ever produced. The plot line was poor, confusing and the ending was really unclear. Characters who were in it just disappeared without any fuss. No where near as good as number one. This sequel goes down in flop history with: Grease 2 & Dirty Dancing 2 Classics having their names ruined with producers who make one film to many! I just wondering if any of the people who have written reviews have actually seen the film?? Total waste of money. I wouldn't recommend it at all!!!

• i thought it was going to be poor, but you know what its not bad.....

  lucasrulez2006-12-10

  I've got to say when I first heard about a Save the last dance 2 I thought cheap knock off can never come near the original. Then when I saw the cast for this film i was even inclined to feeling this was going to be a poor sequel but you know what its not that bad... I think that this is a fun lively little film its not a world beating film or anything like that but a good film to watch in the comfort of your home. I find this is probably one of the better dance films on the market at the moment and the love story element flowing in the background carries the film along nicely. I think perhaps 6/10 is a fair mark for this film.

• Don't See If You Liked the First

  the_green_monster2007-01-19

  This was a terrible movie with a bad plot line. They repeated the same story line as the first but with a different love interest for the same main character. The girl that they got to play Sara however was a terrible actress and was like watching a bad car crash. They had her in red gothy lipstick throughout the entire film that was distracting and unlike Sara. I can't even remember the dancing or the music because all I could think of was how bad this movie is. It totally ruined a great movie and now I am going to have to try to forget that I ever saw it in the first place. I honestly only watched it because it was on t.v. and there was nothing better to watch. It did not relay the message as the first one did. It sent out weird racial messages and was a disgusting display of how Hollywood is out of original ideas. I'd hate to be the writer of this script.

• Good Entry

  tedg2006-12-02

  I'm a sucker for dance movies, even teen dance movies. Its one of the most basic pleasures, to see young people dance and if I am lucky, to dance with them. I'll tell you straight out that this is one of the very best of these. Yes, it has problems. Those first. Its stuck with this teen notion of "being yourself," to not let adult traditions become expectations that guide your life. Like all such movies, it itself is a rigid expectation, and the "freedom" here has our gal move into the most commercially defined trend in all the world. Its hardly free and individual to follow an adult template (refined to capture your ticketfare) which guides you to a mere collection of styles (appropriated and packaged to collect other dollars). Today, there is no genuine Hip Hop. Anywhere. And there are problems with the movie as well. There clearly were huge cuts. An entire story line involving a modern dance teacher seems to have been excised, even to the point that the actor isn't even credited! Some edits are really bad. All of the background characters are offensively trite. And maybe the worst offense is that the hip hop dance sequences aren't energetically photographed. Shucks. Our girl, is pretty. Very pretty. But the makeup is so perfect and extreme that it fights the impression we are supposed to get. Because this was made cheaply, it rents stock footage of New York and the exteriors of the center. One shot has the skyline with the twin towers. Its so jarring it breaks the flow. But forget that, because what's good is very good. I saw this young actress in "Forsaken" where she was merely the designated boobs. She's come a long way. She's credible in this rather constrained character. She seems natural, perhaps because she actually went through a similar experience. She really is a dancer, with a dancer's body. Strong back which we are allowed to see move. Ballet moves that because she is a real ballerina seem genuine. I see in the credits that she is doubled by a real dancer, but I could not see where. She is credible in both the ballet and "street" dancing. The male interest is also playing a role close to who he is, or thinks he is. So he does well. The story is a bit choppy, but it isn't at all the typical fare. There's a real surprise here that raises deeper issues of family than you expect. It really is nice to be surprised in the middle of one of these things. Its not predicable at all. The one ballet performance is photographed well, really well. Its only few moments, but dear, borrowing from Altman and "Red Shoes." Now, let me tell you why I want you to see this. Teen projects almost exclusively start and end clumsily. Its because they are so formulaic they needn't introduce you to the world because you come to the theater already tuned. This project starts so expertly I was charmed from the start. Our girl is in a chair with a small table, white background. She is speaking directly to us as if we were interviewing her. She explains the background of the predecessor movie as the background behind her changes. It seems she is controlling the staging of what we see while she is giving it. This is a scriptwriter's intelligence. The central notion in all these is to fold the audience in the theater to one on screen watching the climactic performance. This opening tells us that we will be a folded audience all the way through. Its a schooled technique, but I was glad to see it. The story comes to a close with all sorts of hanging threads. In an ordinary production, you'd see each of these in turn being resolved. Does she quit? Does she move in? How are the upset parental issues resolved? Thankfully, all these are left hanging. The final image we see is our girl in a frozen ecstatic leap, in the midst of a fusion dance, free. In a sort of Olivia Newton John wild girl outfit. Juices flowing. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.