Stars: Debbie Allen, Charles S Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, Bebe Neuwirth,Asher Book, Kristy Flores, Paul Iacono, Paul McGill, Naturi Naughton, Kay Panabakr, Kherington Payne, Collins Pennie, Walter Perez, Anna Maria Perez De Tagle
Running time: 107 mins

"YOU want fame? Remember fame costs and this is where you start paying in sweat”. The words from the original Fame – released 30 years ago – echo over the opening credits of this remake.

What follows is both unnecessary and unexciting. If you want fame these days, you join the queue to audition for The X Factor of Britain’s/America’s Got Talent.

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Training at somewhere like the New York City High School of Performing Arts is old hat.

The 2009 Fame doesn’t have a reason to exist. It might if Kevin Tancharoen’s movie blew you away with its cast of young performers, old hands and musical numbers. It doesn’t, staggering along for 107 mins with all the speed and panache of an arthritic ballet dancer or a singer with laryngitis.

The presence of Debbie Allen, tough dance teacher Lydia Grant in Alan Parker’s film, only serves to remind you how much better that movie was. As before, the story, such as it is, follows students over four years of training. They’re a likeable enough bunch but whose back stories are all too familiar.

And this is very much a sanitised version of the original. These kids from Fame don’t swear, take drugs or proceed further than kissing on the lips. They’re so clean you could pet them without washing your hands afterwards.

They are also deeply uninteresting. I sorely missed a bad boy Leroy to test the patience of teachers. Okay, one of the would-be dancers toys with throwing himself under a train after his ballet dancer dreams are shattered. And innocent Jenny falls for the TV actor who promises an audition in his trailer but just wants her for his private dirty home movies (but not too dirty – remember this is a PG movie). But that’s not enough to save the day.

Some of the cast have talent – Naturi Naughton is a standout singer – but with a script that’s not even up to the standards of a soap opera and musical numbers that fail to knock your socks off, you’ll be hard pushed to remember the name.