In cinemas now [PG]

Director: Kevin Tancharoen

Runtime: 107mins

It’s now an anthem for a different generation of dreamers and wannabes, but the fact that people remember Fame’s name 30 years later has given it extra resonance. When the movie and theme song debuted in 1980, seeing brilliant dancing on screen was rare, and going to a performing arts high school like New York’s, a wishful fantasy. But Fame’s success wasn’t just a novelty, with six Academy Award nods (two wins), a hit soundtrack and a long-running television spin-off.

These days, our lives and senses are saturated by performance – music videos, productions and reality TV shows offering a shortcut to celebrity. With the extra opportunities though, comes far more competition. Now, one string to your bow isn’t enough. So it’s a very different world for which Fame 2009’s 200 students, chosen from 10,000 auditionees, are preparing.

This answers (cynical explanations aside) a bit of the "why?" about remaking a classic Oscar-winning movie that electrified a generation. If only the film focused more on showing us what makes these kids the special few, it might have been more inspiring and satisfying. Only singer Naturi Naughton gets to showcase an awesome, goosebump-producing talent. (While So You Think You Can Dance fans will recognise Kherington Payne, she fails to convince as good enough to join the world’s best (fictional) modern dance company.)

Apart from sage words imparted by a credible cast of teachers – Broadway and screen veterans including the original’s Debbie Allen, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth, Megan Mullally (who sings great but lip-syncs atrociously) and Charles S. Dutton – the storylines are obvious and predictable (young love, parental career dictation and the profession’s pitfalls (rejection, sleazes and shysters)), with limited character development.The freestyle mayhem of the Cafeteria Jam (a homage to the original’s Hot Lunch) is the choreographic high, since the potentially spectacular multi-genre finale is reduced to fast edits. Nothing comes close to 1980’s iconic, traffic-stopping dancing on yellow taxis.

Enlisting The Matrix, James Poyser and Damon Elliott to revamp the song list produces some tunes that are catchy in a club listening/dancing mode, but they’re unlikely to linger in the public’s imagination. First-time feature director Kevin Tancharoen’s product is what you’d expect from a 24-year-old who’s choreographed, danced and tour directed for Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and N*Sync. Pitched at Gen Y, it’s about the instant, the now, and – some older generations might say – the superficial. In that way, Fame 2009 is a contemporary statement.

**½

OLIVIA STEWART