I sang and acted off and on growing up in suburban Dallas, and if there is a sucker audience for last year's remake of Fame, I'm elbowing for center seating about halfway back. The extreme widescreen aspect ratio (2.40:1) and earth-toned palette are additional incentive for me to give it a shot, and I'm glad I did, if only to see it fail.
The "believe in yourself" and "do what you love" themes are as needed in the lives of kids today as they ever have been. The fatal flaw of the movie is that its characters are spread too thin and the narrative is not as engaging or interesting as Glee or High School Musical are in style.
I had a voucher to see this movie at no cost. The movie wasn't in first run long enough for me to use it, so I never saw the theatrical cut, just this DVD-only "Extended Dance" version that runs 16 minutes longer. The runtime (123 minutes) is closer to the 1980 original's 133 minutes. That doesn't change the fact that the movie is still kind of uninteresting for a while. Once the pace picks up it's not really half bad, but it's not all the way to half good either. The 15-minute auditioning prologue is like dead air. I don't remember a lick of it. No one in these arts fields enjoys sitting through that process in real life. This isn't stagey American Idol comedy hour stuff, so there's nothing to it aside from "these are the archetypes and stereotypes with which we will paint for two hours".
The following quarter hour makes all the difference in the world when it comes to development. I have a feeling that's what the theatrical cut was most lacking overall: character investment and development. Remaking a movie that was rated R and ending up with a PG can only be chalked up to an inconsistent ratings standard board or merciless watering down.
The sanitization of New York City itself since 1980 mirrors the transformation that the Fame "property" went through here. I'd wager it's as edgy as a dull butter knife as a PG, but the rating-free Extended Cut is full of plenty of suggestive material and more authentic high schooler credibility. The initial group jam session in the cafeteria was rolling along fine until some blonde girl started singing all street-style. Again, on assumption, the Extended version isn't exclusively dedicated to more dance footage. My gut is telling me the Dance branding is trying to subconsciously tie it to So You Think You Can Dance in the minds of viewers. I'm sure the target audience will take something away from this if they actually sit down to watch it. Unfortunately, the spectacular failure at the box office makes that less likely. As imperfect, manufactured, and fake as it is, Fame (2009) is better than most teen-aimed stuff.
The Blu-ray hit last Tuesday (12 Jan 2009) and includes some deleted scenes, a "Fame" music video, character profiles, and a couple of featurettes: one on the dance sequences and another on the nationwide casting call to fill the mostly-unknown cast. The included Digital Copy is of the Extended Dance Cut (which I assume is superior based on first-run reviews).