It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Blistering performances.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Apart from the fact that this movie looks slicker and more technically accomplished than the original 1980 "Fame" movie, this remake is inferior to the original in every way you can think of. Of all the problems in the movie, I think the worst is the fact that NONE of the characters - students or teachers - is fleshed out sufficiently. The movie crams in so many characters that it doesn't have time to follow any for a decent length. The lack of a human angle probably explains why the movie doesn't have any bite - I remember the original movie had more grit and drama. This even extends to the musical/dance numbers - the music is instantly forgettable and the dancing is at its best mediocre. What the movie ends up being is very boring, even if you choose to watch the theatrical cut over the extended cut. Stick with the original movie.

The 1980 Irene Cara/Alan Parker version of the film is a cult favourite, famous for that title song that went to number one, naturally a remake would be much more modern and stylised, it did sound like a bit of a silly idea. Basically, set in New York City High School for the Performing Arts, the story sees a group of young boys and girls wanting to achieve fame in whatever talent they have, whether it be drama, music, dancing, rapping or singing, but they have their hold backs. The story goes through freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, senior and graduation, and the main characters, amongst others, are wannabe actress Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker, Danielle's sister), wannabe pianist Denise Dupree (Naturi Naughton) and wannabe dancer Alice Ellerton (Kherington Payne). The teachers keeping an eye on the students and helping them achieve their ambitions include music teacher Mr. Martin Cranston (Kelsey Grammar), dance class teacher Ms. Kraft (Jumanji's Bebe Neuwirth), voice teacher Ms. Fran Rowan (Megan Mullally) and Ms. Angela Simms (Debbie Allen). Also starring Walter Perez as Victor Tavares, Asher Book as Marco, Collins Pennie as Malik Washburn, Kristy Flores as Rosie Martinez, Paul McGill as Kevin Barrett and Paul Iacono as Neil Baczynsky. I can see what the critics mean by trying to make it like a High School Musical kind of thing, I found it similar to something like Save the Last Dance as well, it is filled with the most obvious and tedious clichés, the characters are pretty one dimensional, the songs are okay, the title song being the only really memorable one, overall it is a pretty pointless remake musical drama. Adequate!

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.

Now this movie was pretty terrible, now I can see why some girls would actually like this movie somewhat though. Mainly because of the characters performances when they take the stage, which is the only positive thing going for this movie. Everything else just sucks, plain and simple. The plot is one of the worst I seen in theaters, mainly revolves around bunch of students trying to reach fame. And the students that doesn't deserve it doesn't make it and the ones that does makes it. The thing is when it comes to most of the characters, I did not care what so ever if they succeed or not, especially the one that wants to become a director, the kid is just a dreamer nothing more and was hoping he doesn't make it so he won't end up making a crappy movie like this one. I especially hated the constantly singing dude, he just seemed like a douchenozzle and a fake the girl he was with is annoying as hell and freaking stupid. So yeah the plot of this movie was just irritating to watch, only positive thing about this mess was the performance when the characters take the stage that is all.3.5/10