College Rock Stars

This is not a real review, it should be taken more as a collection of impressions on the film.

Very classic film for kids with the usual band of losers who have to put on a big show, and up to this point this is a very normal film of very normal sufficiency but this film has a little something that raises it slightly making it worthy of something more than six and this thing is an unusual depth with which the film is approached especially in the first part even if this depth is then lost a little becoming strangely hasty as if it had to end quickly due to lack of time. So the film deserves a seven because it is a little deep as well as being a good film for teenagers.

This high school musical movie actually contains one of HSM's stars, Vanessa Hudgens, plus Lisa Kudrow as the single mother of the protag, Will Burton (Gaelen Connell), who is delighted when his mom finds a way to take them to live in a new place, Lodi, New Jersey. He was more then ready for a change. In one of the chatty emails to David Bowie that provide the narration, he calls his old high school "Guantanamo with lunch breaks." What happens at the new school? Will gets lucky. Real lucky. He gets paired off with Vanessa Hudgens in a class, and they become a couple. A former Alpha Female called Charlotte (junior prom queen, head cheerleader), played by Alyson Michalka, finds out Will has an encyclopedic musical knowledge and recruits him to meld her garage band into one that can beat the high school's reigning Glory Dogs and win the tri-state (NY, NY, CN) "bandslam." One obvious motive is that she wants to beat the Glory Dogs to trounce its lead singer, Ben Wheatly (Scott Porter), because he is her snotty former boyfriend. Aside from Ben, a generic model of testosterone overconfidence, Graff (mostly) steers clear of high school stereotypes.

This sets up a trajectory for the film that's like an older kids' version of Richard Linklater's 'School of Rock,' but Gaelen Connell is no Jack Black and the pathway to the big event isn't as cute -- or as climactic. That was one of Black's triumphs, but on the other hand Connell himself is way cuter than Jack Black, whose closest lookalike is the base guitarist, a Flea imitator who calls himself Bug (Charlie Saxton). Resembling young Tom Hanks or maybe John Cusack, with a weak chin, a sweet little smile, a mini Afro and a wrinkled brow, you can almost believe Connell's Will might actually be in the constant company of the school's hottest chicks. Not quite. He's not as articulate and soulful as Cusack, and not as edgey and dark as Christian Slater was in 'Heathers' or 'Pump Up the Volume.' But then Hudgens isn't the shiny, prefab girlfriend of Zac Efron this time. Au contraire. She gets to be the dark one. She calls herself Sa5m ("the 5 is silent"), wears dark clothes, and she reads all the time, even when Will's trying to kiss her.

When you think of Eighties youth classics like those two Slater was in, Bandslam looks generic. We'll just never relive that great Eighties youth movie moment or see the likes of the late, great John Hughes again. But when you compare Bandslam to 'High School Musical,' you realize this is not the kind of movie that you pan. It deserves encouragement. The screenplay by Graff and Josh A. Cagan is packed with inessential cuteness and never takes its dark moments seriously enough -- even though it pushes them too hard. The music Will leads the band into is bland -- and loud. There's none of the joy in rock frenzy that Jack Black comically evokes. Maybe Wil's expertise -- his celebratory (and still pretty touching) visit to the ruins of CGMG, where punk began -- may seem more a reflection of the 50ish director than a teenager. But none of that matters enough to maul this movie, unless you're desperate to show how musically hip you are. The cast is just too appealing and the action is just too much fun to write them off.

When Will reshapes the band by adding brass and an Asian girl classical keyboardist (Lisa Chung) and an elphin-spouting nerdy girl cellist (Elvy Yost) and a boy drummer called Basher (Ryan Donowho) whose majors are machine shop and anger management, if feels like he's bringing something to life (however silly the music), and Jack Black was just a puppet master. It's also good that Kudrow really seems like a single mom trying not to get too much in the way of her son's new life but still protective and sometimes forgetting herself and making him a friend, or as he says "doing that thing of talking to me like I'm Oprah." Sometimes Todd Graff's perky cuteness seems pretty real. Connell has been compared to a Michael Cera "without the sweetness." "Thank you Shia LaBeouf and Michael Cera" is something Connell has actually said, "for paving the way for someone like me to be the leading guy in a movie." But Connell is Connell. LaBeouf would be a lead weight here, and Cera would swamp the movie with his indie quirkiness. The best thing about Connell is he's not a scene stealer: he's a catalyst. He makes this movie built around him an ensemble picture, and everybody looks pretty good.

I rate it an 8 only because for a PG movie kids younger than 12 might not get what the movie is about; though they might just think it's about singing. Which is not bad because the movie has excellent music selection, flows with scene transition very well. Teenagers will love this movie for sure; but parents will be pleasantly surprise. The dialogs are well written - witty and not contrive. Each characters and their dynamic are well developed and relatable. You laugh; you cry, but at the end you leave the theater with a smile on your face, forgetting that you have just spent almost 2 hrs in a theater. All actors were on point in playing their characters. Great casting. This is the sleeper movie of the summer.

I didn't exactly choose to see this movie, it runs on a 24 hour movie channel on free to air. However, despite my cynical expectations I was pleasantly surprised. This film manages (just) to rise above the usual high school coming of age, misfit boy meets unlikely popular girl cliches not by directly avoiding them, but by both embracing them with sardonic humour, and unexpected twists. There is just the right mix of expected themes and tropes, yet the performances of the leads ( especially Hudgens) certainly make this a better than average coming of age teen angst drama. There are plenty of eye-rolling and cringe-worthy moments, but these are rarely lengthy. I invite the viewer to suspend cynicism ( at least a little ) and allow the diverse soundtrack to take one through the story, the closing sequence is remarkable. This is certainly not a lollipops and rainbows Disney trite offering- it has some very authentic dark moments which are not simply swept away by inane Pollyanna platitudes. Go on, give it a go.

The premise of this movie is not extraordinary. I say it's pretty common.

The ingredients are: (1) a boy (of the unpopular type) who has a charisma (understands music, although he doesn't seem to play an instrument) moves to a new town because his mom got a new job (2) a single mom (of the teenage boy) (3) a girl (of the cheerleader type) who likes boy 1 (4) another boy (of the popular type this time) who use to be the boyfriend of popular girl 3 and learns to hate boy 1 (5) A public contest of some sort...

...(wait this is exactly like the ingredients of ...The Karate Kid!)...except for Mr. Miyagi! ...

and (6) Vanessa Hudgens playing a good girl (!) of the lonely type who also happens to like boy 1.

Anyway. This doesn't look or feels nothing like The Karate Kid despite my comparison! It's basically a teen dramedy. Young hopes. Young love. Friendship.

It's enjoyable enough. It has music and some (not very good) teeny songs. It may attract the younger audience but this movie is far from deep or interesting. Pretty standard stuff really.

If it's on TV or something, check it out