Fame

Much of the movie has a structureless, documentary feeling to it, which is good and should have been pushed further.

Whether the young ensemble attains it remains to be seen. The standouts, though, are Naughton, Pennie and Perez De Tagle.

It’s not a good sign when the first few minutes of a movie about singing, dancing, rapping, video-camera-wielding teenagers reminds you of a certain grimy horror franchise.

So little time is devoted to developing characters that it's hard to share their hopes and fears.

This PG-rated offering thus dances along a fine line -- one that suggests a shelf-life well short of its "I wanna live forever" anthem.

The cowardly producers have banished the grit and darkness of Parker’s original.

Fame has today's usual gritty form of slick to it, but in every other way it's an Amateur Hour and a half.

"Fame", the updated version of the 1980's version, has nothing new. It's the same funky dances with dull music with a terrible cast. Most of all, they didn't fix the terrible wrap up the original one suffered. This is a movie where its terrible to the heart.

The choreography is quite good, stylish - it was fun watching rooms full of people dancing away to sings and I admit I may have participated with the singing as well at times!. There is a plot, rather than it just costantly going from song to song, those are the main plus points. There are undoubtedly a number of cliches present, men 'admiring' female dancers for their suggestive moves and vice versa, etc. it doesn't exactly greatly break new ground but its alright as a film following a group of singers/performers trying to improve their craft and be taken seriously, professionally. The vocals and dancing are the main appeals and their not bad, so I'd say its alright but its hardly a particularly good film as far as it having a clear plot direction as such. There are a lot of characters and it doesn't really center on any one person for the duration, so it feels like as a viewer we only see, or know, snippets about peoples personal lives, their background etc., which is a shame. It felt at times that there was a sort of forced melodrama present which didn't sit with me too well, almost as if its trying a bit too hard to be hard hitting but it doesn't quite succeed. Some of the cast (the young, teenage students) clearly aren't exactly top grade actors, sadly - not all but some scenes I felt could (perhaps should) have been cut. I also felt, more specifically, that Kelsey Grammar was trying a bit too hard to be seen as the strict, perfectionist teacher unhappy with anything but the best from his students. It felt, to me, insincere, although im not arguing that he can't act as obviously he's a famous actor from other films and the TV series Frasier etc. I suppose its mainly a musical/music based film and as that its alright (with the caveat of some scenes being slightly better than others), so it could be worse but as a film I'd say its not particularly good either. As the film continues, I felt it, if anything, seemed obviously desperate to try to stand out and I lost some of the enthusiasm I'd initially felt for it. If it concentrated purely on the musical numbers and all but cut the rest of the plot out, or certainly lowered the number of characters at play, it would've come across better/slicker. It just didn't really work for me, although I can't deny that the initial dance scenes and some of the singing/musical numbers are fairly decent.

BORING. If these people are talented, it's actually very hard to tell. The original Fame movie was awesome. This movie is pathetic. It's that simple. Yes, they can be compared. If you're going to remake a cult classic, you should have a clue. If you can't improve on it, leave it alone. These days there are many performing art schools and they don't all do hip-hop (shock horror!). In fact you may find that most artists are interested in diversifying rather than recreating the same-old same-old. My advice - Ignore this movie was ever made because it shouldn't have been.

An hour and forty seven minutes of musical hell, this "update" of FAME feels like it's been on forever long before the credits are ready to roll. It's packed from beginning to end with cringe-worthy moments, frenetic direction and unappealing characters. Worst of all it commits the cardinal sin for any entertainment product in that it's boring, exchanging any of the edginess of the original for plots recycled from so many after school teen specials. "This is who I am Mom and Dad, SO YOU BETTER BELIEVE IN ME!" So many people try to give these kids advice but ultimately the only advice they need to follow is "DON'T BE AFRAID TO SUCCEED!" I can't shake the feeling that the kids' embarrassing, amateur-theatre rendition of Chumbawamba's "I get knocked down" (a song released 12 years prior to the release of the film) is indicative of the disconnect that seems to exist between whomever wrote this script and whatever was culturally relevant to the movie's target audience. It doesn't help that the movie is filled with these bizarre interpretations of reality: The guy who decides the way to get ahead as a producer is to take an acting audition, the squeaky-voiced teacher who performs a horrifyingly awkward, nails-on-chalkboard rendition of "You Took Advantage of me" that somehow impresses the hell out of her students or the cafeteria where the kids are allowed to run all over the tables. It also doesn't help that there's simply too many characters and no time is spent developing any of them. If you're worried that this movie is being compared to the original unfairly don't be. You can rest assured it's terrible in it's own right.