Review by San Francisco Chronicle

“Standing Ovation” is an innovative film in the sense that every minute or so it comes up with a different way of being annoying. Moreover, it often goes for a layered effect, in which it’s annoying in two or three ways simultaneously. In such moments you might say that instead of striking individual notes of annoyance, it produces complex chords that resonate in the mind and reverberate through the skin until it starts to crawl.

The film tells the story of two competing singing and dancing quintets – think aspiring Spice Girls, years after the event. One group is made up of teens, the other of 12-year-olds, and the first way “Standing Ovation” falls down on the job is that it tries to make us dislike the teen group – but they have all the talent.

You’ve seen movies about talent competitions before. One group goes up there and blows everybody away. And then the protagonists go onstage and, against all odds, do something even better. Well, the protagonists in this movie are never better, even when the movie tries to make us think so.

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Review by Orlando Sentinel

Off the wall? Friend, you don’t know off the wall until you’ve seen five twelve-year-old girl singer-dancers cover the Tina Turner/Phil Spector epic “River Deep, Mountain High” in the screwball kiddie dance comedy, Standing Ovation. This no-budget Jersey Shore Musical has it all — a chorus line of real firefighters (with no rhythm), an Italian-American tween wisegirl named Joei, a wacky, malevolent wig impresario named Mr. Wiggs played by one-time casting director Sal Dupree as if he’s mad he had to quit the drag act.

It’s a bubblegum mess, lacking structure, coherence,and any sense of drama. But it manages moments of draft fun, sometimes in spite of itself.

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Review by Philly

A modest middle-school musical bursting with immodest exuberance, Standing Ovation is the story of a network music-video competition pitting the “mean girls,” a quintet called the Wiggies, against the “nice girls,” the Ovations.

The Wiggies are rich and self-satisfied, and play dirty. (Hiss!) The Ovations are working-class, self-doubting, and sportsmanlike. (Hurrah!)

Who are you rooting for?

Set in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Manhattan, the tween-targeted film from writer/director Stewart Raffill (Mannequin: On the Move) is a glittery string of backstage conventions. Backstabbing! Pushy parents! Precocious stars! Blind ambition! But if you’re a tween (and don’t watch Glee), the cliches will be new to you.