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Fame

Play trailer Poster for Fame PG 2009 1h 47m Drama Musical Romance Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
23% Tomatometer 119 Reviews 36% Popcornmeter 100,000+ Ratings
At New York's High School of Performing Arts, students (Asher Book, Kristy Flores, Paul Iacono) from all walks of life get the chance to hone their skills as singers, actors, dancers and more. Over four years, these young men and women will see if they truly have the dedication and talent to achieve success, while still juggling regular schoolwork, feelings of self-doubt and budding romances.
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Fame

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Critics Consensus

Fame is ultimately undone by its choppy editing, its incomplete characterizations, and its apparent desire to appeal to the High School Musical generation.

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Critics Reviews

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Perri Nemiroff CinemaBlend 08/12/2010
2/5
I'm gonna live forever? Fat chance. Go to Full Review
Andrea Gronvall Chicago Reader 10/02/2009
The high school is so sanitized that there are no drugs, cutthroat competition, or-inconceivably for a theatrical milieu-no gay students. Go to Full Review
Keith Uhlich Time Out 09/30/2009
3/5
There are enough hoary soap-operatic plottings for a thousand Gossip Girls (emotionally distant parents, almost-rapes, suicide attempts), yet Tancharoen individualizes each crisis so that no one character comes off as a mock-universal surrogate. Go to Full Review
Megan Basham WORLD 03/22/2021
So many of these characters flit across the screen, we're only given minutes to get to know each and, consequently, care about none. Go to Full Review
Richard Propes TheIndependentCritic.com 09/07/2020
2.0/4.0
Everything that this version of Fame does, Parker's 1980 version of Fame did much, much better. Go to Full Review
Micheal Compton Bowling Green Daily News 05/15/2019
C-
Four years of school are covered in a brisk 107 minutes, the characters aren't completely developed, and none of the actors [are] given much to work with Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Mike D May 27 Updated version has none of the grit and power of the original. The characters are shallow, and under developed. Each a clone of someone that some producer thought would be popular. Example the 2nd tier Justin Bieber with the heavy vocal sweetening. The young starlet who obviously doesn't belong at a performing arts high school and in 4 years never develops. Adult characters are softened to be student's buddies but attempted toughness at the end when bursting dreams before graduation.. Charles Dutton was excellent. Even wannabe cathartic moments were weak. Dancing was the only thing that was worked through. No stars emerged from the cast. An expensive missed opportunity. See more Ionela C 04/20/2024 The soundtrack is marvellous while this remake is suck a shame. See more David S 12/08/2023 Completely overwrought and predictable. The writing is subpar. The acting was okay, but they missed out on some potentially great storylines. I watched out of nostalgia for my mom who loved the show. It did not live up to the '80s show in any way. See more Steve D 10/09/2023 If you have no interest in making Fame why make a film called Fame? See more isla s 09/04/2022 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. See more 05/27/2021 It’s heart is in the right place, But all the dancing and music cannot save this film from feeling like polished Disney kids afternoon special. Missing is the grit and real life teen struggles that made the original film stand out back in 1980 See more Read all reviews
Fame

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Movie Info

Synopsis At New York's High School of Performing Arts, students (Asher Book, Kristy Flores, Paul Iacono) from all walks of life get the chance to hone their skills as singers, actors, dancers and more. Over four years, these young men and women will see if they truly have the dedication and talent to achieve success, while still juggling regular schoolwork, feelings of self-doubt and budding romances.
Director
Kevin Tancharoen
Producer
Mark Canton, Celine Catalaa, Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg, Richard S. Wright
Screenwriter
Allison Burnett
Distributor
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Production Co
United Artists, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lakeshore Entertainment
Rating
PG (Sexual Situations|Language|Teen Drinking|Thematic Material)
Genre
Drama, Musical, Romance
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 25, 2009, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 25, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$22.5M
Runtime
1h 47m
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