High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Sequel to the TV movies "High School Musical" and "High School Musical 2" (neither of which I saw). A bunch of friends are getting ready to graduate from high school. There's Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) the school basketball champ who secretly wants to sing and dance. There's his girlfriend--sweet, squeaky clean Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) who is going to a college that is far away from Troy. Then there's Troy's best bud Chad (Corbin Bleu) who doesn't want high school to end. Then there's the evil Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) who wants Gabriella's part in the school play.

The script is horrendous. I laughed out loud at a few of the dumber lines and was constantly either rolling my eyes or smirking at the plot developments. However, I'm not the target audience for this--I'm a 46 year old guy. I saw it cause I love musicals and this has gotten raves from the critics. It's pretty obvious they're not cheering on the ridiculous plot but the musical numbers. They come out of nowhere but they're full of energy and life. They're also beautifully choreographed and some are really eye-popping. The whole cast can sing and dance and give their all to every single song. "The Boys Are Back" number between Chad and Troy is a true show-stopper. None of these songs will become classics but they're good enough. This is a musical aimed squarely at teenagers and pre-teens. The language is very clean (the G rating should tell you that), all the teens look clean and fresh, all the plots are predictable and family friendly and the whole cast goes at this full blast. This is truly a movie that the whole family can watch. A lot of people are jeering at this movie (notice the poor rating it has) but why? It's just an update of those stupid Beach Party movies of the 1960s. It's no masterpiece musical but it's fun, friendly and full of energy. I give it a 7.

Never let it be said at the Magic Kingdom that they miss an opportunity to make that extra buck. For the final version of High School Musical, the Disney crowd released it to the theater instead of television. The decision was a no-brainer, the various road company High School Musical performers have been doing great business wherever they appeared including my home city. And certainly the box office for High School Musical 3 has justified this decision.

But this is the end for this particular class, the six stars are already way too old for High School Musical 3, we've got to graduate them. In the cast are the new people getting ready to take over for Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Ashley Tisdale, and Lucas Grabeel.

They are going out with style however and the plot such as it is has the cool kids from East High competing for a scholarship to the Julliard School of Music. Two representatives from Julliard will be at the senior show to award a scholarship and you already know that scheming Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) is going to do whatever it takes to get that scholarship.

In fact Tisdale's quest for the scholarship sets her up with an All About Eve twist in this plot. Jemma McKenzie-Brown plays a new girl from London who attachs herself to Tisdale. Now if any of the teen crowd that likes the High School Musical reads this review and decides to check out All About Eve, I will have done my job.

In fact the eventual decision of the judges is quite a good one and to appreciate it you would have had to see all three films.

High School Musical 3 is an appealing film as the others are, but it creates an incredible fantasy world which I can tell you didn't exist when I went to high school lo these many years ago. And supposedly we're far more sophisticated now and like realism in our cinema.

But those who've followed the series, see the original Wildcats one more time.

The low score on IMDb is representative of the majority opinion of those that are not really within the target audience of this film, however it is also the opinion of those who have never watched any of the High School Musical films for themselves. Rather than accepting that the film is not for them they also feel the need to deride it as worthless when really they mean that nothing about it holds any value for them. This is not the same as the HSM films being brilliant though – just I think that they come in for some overly harsh criticism by those that seem surprised that they do exactly what they propose to do. In a way it is like complaining that Star Wars is an awful film because it is a sci-fi.

OK, there is plenty wrong with HSM3. The plot is obvious but yet full of sanitised relationships and situations, cloying moral messages and forced sentiment and certainly if you are watching it as a film then yes there is plenty that is clunky. However it is probably not fair to pick holes in all of the obvious stuff while ignoring that it does actually do a good job as a musical. Have you been to a musical? It tends to bring cheesy overacting, big smiles, easy sentiment, big musical numbers and not a lot of room for gritty reality of teenage life and the messy business of teenage relationships – that HSM3 has all these faults is not really something that I'm going to kick it about. It is a bit overlong though and, at almost two hours it does have sections that appear to have little forward motion and perhaps lack pace or a sense of fun that it does when it is in good form. It could and should have lost at least 20 minutes in there somewhere and would have been better for it – although I know that Disney see it as a flagship product recently so want to do more with it. It must also be said that several of the musical numbers are not as fun as they should have been. Some don't inspire in terms of choreography and several of the songs come over as rather bland and samey.

The cast do well, although I understand why some viewers do not like the performances. Efron may not have a great range to expand out of this but he is a great presence in the film – he does singing and dancing really well and has a light touch that makes him easy to like. Likewise Hudgens, for all her photographic "scandals" delivers a wonderfully light turn that is nothing but sweetness. OK neither of them come over as real people but they are sweet and enjoyable couple at the heart of the film. As before Tisdale is fun and bitchy without being unlikeable and she works well with Grabeel. Bleu has less to do than before and I didn't think he was used that well – likewise Coleman.

Overall HSM3 is far from a great film. It is clunky and obvious, overlong, cheesy and is not the sort of thing that will win over viewers who do not like cheesy musicals – but it is a bit harsh to blame that on the film when it is pretty clear from the start that this is what it is setting out to be. It should not be given total forgiveness for its flaws and of course the casual viewer may be left a bit cold by aspects of it but if you are happy to meet it on its terms then it is a reasonably good (if sanitised and soullessly packaged) product.

My only exposure to High School Musical was from a chalet gathering last Christmas where a friend who was a fan brought his DVD and shared with us what's there to like from this highly popular franchise. The DVD has countless of versions released to milk its fan base, that I've really lost count just how many variations (Encore? Extended Dance?) there are out there in the market. Even then I didn't really watch High School Musical 2 completely, only zooming into the catchy song and dance numbers, and as for the first movie, I was only familiar with one or two songs that became like anthems for working together?

Anyway I'm not a fan, and the reason why I would have watched this is because Disney decided it was good enough for the big screen. Either that, or they actually did their sums and realize that the huge fanbase would turn up in droves to support it in the cinemas. And I guess they were right, looking at how it opened at #1 at the US Box Office. Is it any good then? For the uninitiated like me, the story's nothing spectacular, as it deals with growing pains of students and decisions that come with the end of high school, having choices presented on where you would want to go next for further studies. This would naturally mean a split amongst established friends as you'll be geographically separated, and temporarily close a chapter in your life.

Central to the story would be the possible insecurities and impending (long term?) split between lovebirds Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vannessa Hudgens) due to the latter's brainier character being accepted by Stanford. In fact just watching this movie alone, I thought Gabriella was the psychologically tougher of the two, with Troy being your typical indecisive jock who's a bit wishy-washy about his own development path ahead. The other subplot would be the usual resident evil Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) and her antics in wanting the limelight all for herself, this time though with her personal assistant thrown into the mix, and having the audience judge who's the biggest bitch out there.

But of course this is Disney, so don't expect too deep a theme to be dwelled upon. It's still fairly light stuff that is meant for enjoyment by kids, and supposedly with wholesome values thrown in too that would meet parental approval. It's fairy tale stuff that would seem like a cop out with its perfectly ideal ending, though some may find such saccharine positivity a refreshing change for once.

The song and dance numbers are wonderfully choreographed, though one can cringe at some of the lyrics for the slower numbers. A pity of course that we don't get to see the centerpiece of the show within the show, and only bits and pieces of the graduation play that the characters designed as something to commemorate their time at East High by. But of course I suspect that this is probably reserved in advance for the DVD release, where you can sit through the entire thing in one sitting.

OK, I work at a movie theater and the main thing we've been waiting for is High School Musical 3: Senior Year, we knew it was going to be big, so a few co-workers and I got together for the matinée before all the kids rushed in, it was still packed surprisingly. But I've seen both previous films because my little cousin is just in love with all that pre-teen hoop-la, it's all good, every generation has something so lovey-dovey-cutesee-wootsee type of thing. But one of the things that made this film enjoyable was to see all the kids who were just participating with this film, I mean, I felt like I was in a concert, the kids were clapping with the songs, screaming for their idols, and just having fun, it was cool to see their reactions, to remember a more innocent time of being in love that much with something. But I felt like this was just a cute movie that is getting too much criticism just because it is High School Musical, give it a break and take it for what it is.

The gang is back for their senior year and everything is just perfect, they came up with a great idea for a musical to represent all that they're going through in this exciting year. But there is also a lot of pressure: Zack is facing a tough decision of which college to go to while Gabriella is planning on going to Yale University so far away from him, Sharpay and her brother, Ryan, are competing for a scholarship to Juliard, and Chad and Taylor are learning what to do with the rest of their lives while loosing their best friends to different schools.

Granted High School Musical is never Oscar material, in fact, it's downright like having a soda after school with the hot quarterback or sexy cheerleader, but like I said, it's for the kids. Seeing their reactions to this reminded me and my co-workers of a more innocent time, when I had the same excitement to see Spice World when I was 12 years old. We all had these silly things we loved at a young age and for some reason we become more cynical as we get older criticizing everything that the new generation has, so I'm cutting this movie some slack. It had fun songs, cute characters, silly situations, but great dance numbers and is just over all a nice film for the family. I do recommend it just for the fun of being with the fans and just having a good time, no matter how cheesy it is.

6/10