It comes as no surprise that “Take the Lead” is nowhere near as wonderful (or classic) as “Mad Hot Ballroom.” That documentary was one of 2005’s finest cinematic achievements, a spectacular diary chronicling how the eyes of inner city children could be opened so completely by the competitive world of ballroom dance. The program documented within the picture, started by noted Manhattan dance teacher Pierre Dulaine, has exploded in New York City, elementary schools across the five boroughs lining up one after the other to get their fifth graders involved.

Inspired (loosely, even for Hollywood) by Dulaine’s story, the surprise here is that “Take the Lead” manages to rise about the usual teacher-student clichés and emerge as a rather pleasant uplifting winner. Turning the children into high school seniors, the story as presented by writer Dianne Houston (television’s short-lived “The Education of Max Bickford”) is pure processed cheese. But the crackers it’s served up on are so crunchy, so delicious, that this aerosol confection turns out to be a pretty tasty treat, even if the viewer does realize pretty quickly how little nutritional value in the whole thing there really is.

Essentially, Houston gives us the usual smorgasbord of troubled teenagers, this time all of them inhabiting a Brooklyn high school lorded over by iron-fisted school principal Augustine James (Alfre Woodard, “Something New”) who’s had it with the worst of them. In fact, after a particularly brutal vandal demolishes her car she’s nearly ready to expel the worst of the kids, all of them instead stuck in permanent detention for the rest of the school year. Problem is, none of her teachers want to watch over this band of belligerent youngsters, seemingly every educator in the school deciding the whole lot of them aren’t worth caring for anymore.

Enter sharply dressed and pleasantly mannered dance instructor Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas, “The Legend of Zorro”). He had the good misfortune to run into one of these hated students late one evening, and after discovering which institution he belonged to has decided to offer his services to the school. Augustine sees an opportunity, sticking the dapper dancer with monitoring the school’s detention thinking the students will run him off after a single afternoon. But Dulaine is no stranger to adversity and after some trial and error he manages to break down each kid’s resistance and open their eyes to the wonderful world of ballroom dance. Soon teacher and student alike are learning one from the other, the greatest lesson of all not a new dance step but the realization that, no matter how tough life gets, things can, and do, get better as long as you’re willing to work hard enough to make it happen.

Nothing new there, nothing new at all, actually, and if a person felt like nodding off during that synopsis don’t feel bad because lord knows the first time I heard it I was right there with you. But darnn it all if this little melodrama isn’t just one of the most pleasantly entertaining feasts for the eyes and ears I’ve had the good pleasure to see this year. Former video director Liz Friedlander manages to strip away much of the syrup and schmaltz and craft a delicate adventure of human exploration that’s, at times, a pure joy. Heck, a couple moments had the audience flat-out cheering, and what can I say save that I was sitting right there during the screening clapping loudly right along with them.

It helps that both the writer and the director realize life’s problems cannot be solved by dancing alone. These kids (led by “Finding Forrester” star Rob Brown and “America’s Next Top Model” contestant Yaya DaCosta, not to mention former “Hook” Lost Boy  Dante ‘Rufio’ Basco) don’t magically find their problems fixed just because they can suddenly Tango or Waltz. No, ballroom doesn’t fix their lives or make the situations they all find themselves in any easier, but it does give them hope. Better, it makes them believe in themselves, take responsibility for their futures and come to a realization that they can be more than the dire hand fate has grievously dealt them.

Not that a person should expect a single surprise out of any of this, and if a viewer doesn’t know where “Take the Lead” is heading then they really need to start getting out of the house more often. There isn’t an original bone in this feature’s entire body, and watching the unctuous melancholy dissolve into rapturous interracial familial acceptance, while soothing, is still rather banal. It doesn’t help that this cast of kids seems to live, at least early on, in a world so completely different than anything remotely based in today’s world that only a Hollywood studio head could have believed it to be accurate and believable.

Worst of all, to my mind at least, Houston refuses to give viewers a single glimpse into why Dulaine decides to work so hard to bring this task to a successful conclusion. Now, I’m not saying the writer should have spelled things out, in fact I rather like that she makes Pierre an intriguing enigma. But Houston doesn’t offer audiences anything save a single line late in the film, and while that’s certainly something it isn’t near enough to satisfy my curiosity as to what makes these kids so particularly special.

Thankfully, Banderas is so good by the time the kids danced the credits to their end I nearly didn’t care I knew as much about Dulaine when the curtain closed as I did when it first opened. This is the best the actor has been in ages, nearly as electric and alive as his string of fantastic performances in five Pedro Almodovar classics (“Labyrinth of Passion,” “Matador,” “Law of Desire,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!”). He makes the ballroom enthusiast completely believable; his single-minded focus something worth cheering.

And with hoofing this good who could blame me? Working from the sizzling score by composer Aaron Zigman (“The Notebook”) and hip-hop icon Swizz Beatz (who has worked with everyone from Beyoncé to Metallica), choreographer JoAnn Jansen (with an assist from The Talauega Brothers) unleashes some of the most astonishing dancing to hit screens in years. There is a Tango here that simply must be seen to be believed, cinematographer Alex Nepomniaschy (“The Prince and Me”) capturing it all so effortlessly and in such great detail it was like he put me right in the center of it.