So someone over at United Artists (ahem,Mr. Cruise) decided to remake “Fame”. This despite no buzz,no heat and of course the lack of any original scripts sitting in UA’s vaults.
The studio throws together a no-name cast with perhaps Kay Panabaker being the biggest name among the students. They flesh it with some cool cameos by Kelsey Grammar,Debbie Allen and two ladies who have pretty good stage histories on the stage,Bebe Neuwirth and the awesome Megan Millally.
It wouldn’t have surprised me to see a lame soundtrack to this film as well but I have admit,this was much better then it had a right to me. Taking a page from Disney’s HSM playbook,UA decided to let the cast do most of the singing and for the most part it works.
Naturi Naughton does a fine job in singing “Fame” and “Hold Your Dream” and Megan contributes a fun track called “You Took Advantage of Me”. But not everything works,one of the young leads,Asher Book,does the impossible in destroying the Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me”.
Its a hit or miss effort that deserves credit for trying instead of putting out a crap of retreads we have heard far too many times.
I do recommend this and think Ms. Naughton has a bright future ahead of her.
