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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
A.O. Scott, At the Movies: I don't mind the cornball and I don't mind the cliches, but I just think that the thing has to be executed a little better than this. Read more
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's almost fatally modest. But it has a sweet spirit, and it offers only one true moment of inadvertent camp: a (lame) finale featuring an African dance routine completely at odds with all the white bread we've just been served. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Much of Fame draws us in, through the irresistible appeal of young people bursting with energy. Read more
Ruth Hessey, MovieTime, ABC Radio National: Brim[s] with enough confidence and promise to carry you through the predictable narrative. Read more
Tasha Robinson, AV Club: A film that's largely a raw, uplifting love letter to creativity in every possible form. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Lives are spared in this sugarless new version of Alan Parker's movie and the TV show it spawned. But innocent songs and unsuspecting dance routines are hacked to bits. Read more
Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: The high school is so sanitized that there are no drugs, cutthroat competition, or-inconceivably for a theatrical milieu-no gay students. Read more
Adam Graham, Detroit News: First-time filmmaker Kevin Tancharoen struggles to flesh out the 10 characters we meet during their freshman year at PA. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: NYC high school students sing, dance, emote in acting classes, and otherwise insist that America's got talent, but this unnecessarily tepid, conservative remake of 1980's far more famous and affecting original Fame suggests otherwise. Read more
Michelle Orange, L.A. Weekly: Members of the class of '80 struggled to stay in school despite homelessness and crime; the greatest crisis in '09 finds a student's Sesame Street work schedule affecting her GPA. Read more
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Forget about living forever: This new Fame will be lucky to hang around for a month. Read more
Linda Winer, Newsday: A big, bland and bogus clone of a movie update, which runs a half-hour less than the original and only feels like forever. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Pleasant, undemanding entertainment for drama-club kids and the people who love them -- a family-friendly salute to young performing artists. Read more
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Mullally has the most poignant moment, admitting to her students that the reason she teaches is because fame, for her, just wasn't in the cards. (Stardom, more than in the first film, is golden here.) Read more
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A desperate, cynical -- and most likely unsuccessful -- attempt by a dying studio to stave off oblivion by jumping on the High School Musical bandwagon, exploiting one of its legacy titles in ways that dishonor the original. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: This Fame is a film without the guts to show Idolized America that, as Debbie Allen so memorably said way back when, "Fame costs, and right here's where you start paying." Read more
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: As a demo reel showcasing seven promising young talents from their freshman through senior years, it's pleasant enough. As a movie dramatizing the talent and dedication required to make it, the Fame reboot has fleet feet but lacks heart. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A cheesy production with underdeveloped characters that feels more like a TV pilot than a self-contained motion picture. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The new Fame is a sad reflection of the new Hollywood, where material is sanitized and dumbed down for a hypothetical teen market that is way too sophisticated for it. It plays like a dinner theater version of the original. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: [Its] hyperreal documentary quality is combined with a borderline fantasy feeling, which will probably drive some literal-minded viewers up the wall, but which is actually the movie's best element and its one claim to distinction. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The picture is fitfully effective, but the story disappears in the editing bay. The movie has about as much heft as watching jesters and fire eaters at a village fair. Read more
Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: There are six new songs in the remake, but not one makes any impact, or is likely to end up as the ring tone of 2010. Read more
Greg Quill, Toronto Star: That fame seems assured to those who merely crave it -- without sacrifice, or spiritual and physical effort -- emerges as the underlying message in this sanitized and unrewarding production. Simon Cowell has much to answer for. Read more
Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: "Already?" the woman behind me said plaintively when the words "Sophomore Year" flashed up on the screen. That's the joy of this Fame. Like the old ones, it convinces you that high school, if not life, should go on forever. Read more
Keith Uhlich, Time Out: 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. Read more
David Jenkins, Time Out: This film makes even the most gaudy of Saturday night TV talent contests look like Dostoyevsky in comparison. Read more
Christopher Orr, The New Republic: Way back in 1980, when the Oscar-winning theme song of the movie Fame declared "I'm gonna live forever," it was easy to believe the lyric was an example of artistic license. Now, it's not so clear. Read more