Memorable, crazy movie

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Various students audition and eventually complete the four years in the High School of Music & Art in NYC. Principal Angela Simms (Debbie Allen) leads a faculty that includes drama teacher Mr. Dowd (Charles S. Dutton), dance teacher Ms. Kraft (Bebe Neuwirth), singing teacher Ms. Rowan (Megan Mullally) and music teacher Mr. Cranston (Kelsey Grammar).The movie simply has too many people and tries to go through too much time. The original has the advantage of being original. Instead of diving into one or two of these characters, the feel is scattered and the four year span doesn't help. It's the same structure as the original but once again, the original was original back then. There is also a cleaning up of the original in this G-rated version. So it's not even as good or edgy as the original and lots of these Step Up Dance Up movies have been made since then. None of this is memorable.

Wretched. Horrible. Awful. Pathetic and sad. When the lights burnt out of the title before the movie even began, I foresaw bad things for this movie. It is so full of cliché and stereotypes.This is one of the most poorly made (this is my biggest complaint) films I have seen in recent years -- nothing seemed to really matter to anybody involved. Bad script, horrible acting (Kay Panabaker may be the MOST annoying actress I have ever run across), implausible situations ... ugh. Stupid and trite. Fake emotions and tears. I actually felt awful when I wanted a kid to go ahead and kill himself because he was wearing horrible pants. I didn't care for a single soul in this film because NONE of it felt real(istic).I can watch So You Think You Can Dance or Glee or American Idol on television and care more for any of those people I see on screen than I did here. Fame is all truly tragic ... and not in a good King Lear-tragic kind of way. There seems to be no real heart or emotion in this thing -- perhaps it is adequately named since fame is what so many people seem to care about anymore ... it doesn't matter what one does to "earn" it.Famehorrors! (this could've been spelled another way but I think it would have been rejected -- although BOTH words fit) -- and this dud of a film was full of them since not one of them seemed to genuinely care that the movie was terrible.The original television show deserved better!

This remake was doomed from the start. The original film is iconic- even those who haven't seen the film know the theme tune. How can you compete with Irene Cara's original version? The r'n'b remix that this new film uses is terrible. But it's not just the title song that this remake has to compete with. The remake cannot free itself from the shadow of the original.Remaking Fame was not an entirely ridiculous idea. The original was thirty years ago and with the advent of Facebook, YouTube, and all those X-factor type shows, shortcutting your way to fame seems like a real possibility. And the cast actually look like they could be at high school, instead of the original cast that looked like they could have children who were at high school. There was a lot of potential for the director and writer to make a film that didn't try to compete with the original, but was an alternative that could be equally enjoyable.This film focuses more on dance and music than it does acting (perhaps because the actors can't really act). We get the same types of characters that we got for the original, however in the original these characters didn't come off as stereotypes. They were fleshed out and I was gripped by their problems, which were far darker than this film. As a viewer you actually wanted to make an effort to follow all these different characters in the original. However in this film the characters are so cardboard and the situations so clichéd that it's easy to forget who they are. It makes the lyric in the title song: "baby, remember my name", amusingly ironic. For the time that the characters are on screen, most of them are annoying. The naive/stupid 'plain' girl and her wet boy-band reject love interest are particular standouts in that department.As in the original, the film marks each year of the characters' time at the school, starting from auditions to graduation, however the time gaps seem to be massive. Random characters and relationships will just come out of nowhere, and so the characters never really progress. Instead it's like amnesia occurs at the end of each year.You can tell which of the songs are from the original film because the other ones are so bland. There is a nice version of Out Here on My Own, although it doesn't compare with Irene Cara's version either in the musical or dramatic sense. Cara's character (Coco) was the showoff star who was actually more vulnerable than she appeared to be. In the new version, she's a bit of a loner- the equivalent of Bruno in the original.But what about those who haven't seen the original? You'll probably be even more lost than the ones who've seen the original and know what to expect. Because the film is character-driven, the lack of interesting characters will make the film seem infinitely long. It attempts to be gritty by adding in a few swear words and 'serious' issues but this just makes it worse. If it was really cheesy at least it might have been entertaining.In short, this film has nothing to say about fame, current or otherwise.

If any of you are wondering, this is not like High School Musical. Shockingly, this is a very good remake (well, I wouldn't say it's a remake but an updated version but many people call it a remake). The students are very likable and the acting is so-so, the actress who stuck out with her fantastic singing voice was Naturi Naughton and her version of the songs "Out Here On My Own" and "Fame" were brilliant. The dance sequences were phenomenal and actually made you want to get off your seat and join them. The storyline was good and it sent the usual message this type of movie sends and delivers the whole 'you can make it if you believe in you' message which worked as it would in this movie.I'm genuinely surprised as this was better than I expected it to be but it's not better than the original. My criticisms are that one or two of the actors had their moments of great acting and then it went to poor however this wouldn't put you off the movie as the singing and dancing triumphs. Another criticism is that there wasn't enough Naturi Naughton for me, I wanted to hear her sing more, her voice is phenomenal! For me, I thought it was fantastic and I'm shocked at how much I liked it. If you're a fan of the 80's Fame, then you'll love this! This is two hours of feel-good fun.Read more reviews at: www.dudedazzmoviereviews.wordpress.com