After the first 15 minutes to the Fame I’d made up my mind what I going to say about it: Yet another pretentious and theatrical musical about the young performance artist suffering melodramatically while trying to make it to the top. While my initial impression still partly holds, I have to admit Fame wasn’t really all that bad.

Yes, there’s a lot of melodramaticism going on here, but also a lot of undeniable warmth to the way that the characters are written and presented in the movie, and it was that love for the characters that won me over eventually. The movie is noticeably lengthy at 134 minutes and would’ve gained from a bit more rapid pacing at times.

Young Irene Cara provides great vocals to the key songs and would go on to an even greater musical triumph with Flashdance three years later.

80s-o-meter: 78%

Total: 73%