"What was the point of making this movie?" I continually asked myself this question during the 107 minutes after the previews were over. There were 10 main characters, none of which have enough screen time (not that their acting talent merited more) to make you care about them. It is so filled with old teen and musical movie clichés that the plot can be predicted by the time the "freshman" sequence is over.
Fame is about the New York City High School of Performing Arts and 200 students who spend four years of their lives going there. That is the plot and then there are all the different characters whose stories are so stereotypical that they have all been told in another movie at some point. There is the under-privileged, talented, black boy from the ghetto who falls for the girl who's a piano virtuoso but really just wants to sing, but her father won't let her, the uptight white girl who finds a guy who helps her loosen up, the director who gets scammed out of $5000, the guy who isn't talented enough to make it and tries to kill himself, and so many more.
The characters are all completely one dimensional except for the teachers, who have some substance but not enough screen time to make you care about them more than you care about the students. The writing is very limited and the direction is no better than most of the other dance movies to have some out in the past five years. The choreography wasn't bad but you can find much better in other films (i.e Take the Lead). The high points of this film are the cinematography and the film editing which were very good, but you forget about the look of the shots after all the mindless droning of the characters.
The only suggestion I could give to the producer's would be to take the cast of the faculty (which included Kelsey Grammar, Bebe Neuwirth and Megan Mullay of 90's sitcom fame) and some of Sinclair's dancers, actors, and singers to launch a TV show. That would at least have some talent and would be worth spending the hour a week to watch.
Fame is about the New York City High School of Performing Arts and 200 students who spend four years of their lives going there. That is the plot and then there are all the different characters whose stories are so stereotypical that they have all been told in another movie at some point. There is the under-privileged, talented, black boy from the ghetto who falls for the girl who's a piano virtuoso but really just wants to sing, but her father won't let her, the uptight white girl who finds a guy who helps her loosen up, the director who gets scammed out of $5000, the guy who isn't talented enough to make it and tries to kill himself, and so many more.
The characters are all completely one dimensional except for the teachers, who have some substance but not enough screen time to make you care about them more than you care about the students. The writing is very limited and the direction is no better than most of the other dance movies to have some out in the past five years. The choreography wasn't bad but you can find much better in other films (i.e Take the Lead). The high points of this film are the cinematography and the film editing which were very good, but you forget about the look of the shots after all the mindless droning of the characters.
The only suggestion I could give to the producer's would be to take the cast of the faculty (which included Kelsey Grammar, Bebe Neuwirth and Megan Mullay of 90's sitcom fame) and some of Sinclair's dancers, actors, and singers to launch a TV show. That would at least have some talent and would be worth spending the hour a week to watch.