Center Stage

So the kids from Fame did live for ever, and here they are sweatin' all over again, seemingly with the same parents and tutors. Indeed, so many are the clichés in Hytner's film about a group of aspiring young ballet dancers, the script could have been generated by a Fame-crazed computer. Sure, a few details are shuffled: the School for the Performing Arts is the American Ballet Academy, the undisciplined but talented Leroy is now a girl called Eva (Saldana), but the hopes and heartache are the same, and boy, do the characters know how to party! Funny thing is, they still do the freestyle stuff to the same lousy rock.