Metacritic reviews

Audiences will leave the theater ready to sign up for some dance classes themselves.

The movie uses the materials of melodrama, but is gentle with them; it's oriented more in the real world, and doesn't jack up every conflict and love story into an overwrought crisis.

Sexy and infectious in spite of itself.

There isn't a sensible reason to recommend this movie, except that its melange of clichés and conventions is embarrassingly enjoyable.

Aiming to keep it real, the cast of the new dance casserole Center Stage sweats spunk.

Comes off as an episode of "Beverly Hills, 90210" where, instead of spoiled rich kids, the characters are all ballet stars in the making.

The strained romantic plot is a slow fizzle.

The cliched script by Carol Heikkinen plays like "Dawson's Creek" in toeshoes.

Has next to no story beyond some stock clichés about bulimia, stage mothers and internal affairs in the corps de ballet.

An ounce of self-awareness about its almost gleeful use of cliches would have improved this dance soap opera.