High School Musical 3: Ano da Formatura

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.

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.

Wow, this series has worn out its welcome. The first two installments were modest, harmless TV movies with fast-moving stories and some catchy songs. The third time was not the charm.

I must say, either my tastes have gotten much more discriminating or this cast is getting worse with each picture. I find Ashley Tisdale about as screechy and annoying as fingernails on a chalkboard, and she was worse than ever in HSM3. Ditto Corbin Bleu, so cheerful and peppy that it gets a little sickening. All of the "actors" come off like over-eager stage-children, but those two are probably the worst offenders. None of the case- and I mean none- are believable as real, human high school students.

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.

Okay, I am 100% completely for the High School Musical franchise! Have you noticed that the majority of people who have something derogatory to say about the series are 15+. Well, duh! You were young once too and no one constantly dissed the Lion King or Cinderella or Rugrats or whatever your "show" was as a naive, innocent kid. Lions don't talk or dance or sing, there are no such things as "fairy god mothers" and talking mice, and babies don't have imaginary worlds where they can talk in front of adults, yet no one hears them. What do you want Disney to do: turn High School Musical into a movie about kids who are sexually active backstage and smoke weed after rehearsals? There's nothing wrong with a nice, innocent, family movie, people! If Disney turned High School Musical into that, you'd be complaining WAY more, trust me! And yes, High School Musical may be like a fantasy high school world that we all WISH could exist, but it's not destroying the kids' brain cells or anything. Once they get to that certain age level, they'll realize that the "perfect, happy, HSM life" was all an illusional element created because it's Disney. So chill.

If you went in with that perspective, you'd see that High School Musical 3 was pretty enjoyable and that HSM actually has underlying themes that good do the kids some good! The songs were actually cool and different and were fun to sing along to. It's also sad watching the Wildcats grow up if you're really a fan---they're hearts can't seem to tear away from East High. Oh, and Zac Efron isn't too hard to look at either! Take your kids and have a NICE, innocent, enjoyable, afternoon at the movies to see this!