(Disneycember Music)
Well I finally finished up the High School Musical trilogy with High School Musical 2. I know that's not the last one...
but I actually saw the last one first, the first one second, and the second one last!
Yup! That's entirely out of order. So, I'll just jump right into it: When I popped this movie in, I'm not gonna lie I was
blown away!
This opening is
amazing. Probably the best thing I've seen out of all the movies
First off, it has a
legitimately funny intro. The kids are all waiting for high school to end and summer to start and the clock behind the teacher
literally gets bigger every single time it cuts back to her. That's so clever. It could be a John Hughes
joke. Then the song singing about summer break starts, and I'm not gonna lie, it left me kind of speechless.
They must have thrown everything
into this one musical number. Look at the dancing, look at the movement, look at how they're utilizing
everything around them, look at the creativity in these steps. How many things can they do with a basketball and
dancing? Damn, they find just about everything you can do with it. Look at the editing look at the
camerawork, look at what a grand scale
this is and on top of that, parts of the film and legitimately good jokes. Yeah, not jokes like "oh, it's for kids
I guess I'll laugh" — no, legitimately funny jokes. I love these yuppie parents
that use their kids as balance. The scene demonstrating how bad kid golfers can be is downright hilarious.
"Good job, killer. Make the ball fear you." I actually rewind the film to hear that line again, it made me laugh so hard.
It's also the only High School Musical to show the bloopers and they're pretty funny, too.
So yeah, an unbelievable opening followed by some real good laughs and an all-around "ehh"
movie. Yeah,
if you thought this was the one that was finally gonna win me all the way over,
you're tapping to a different tune. While it does have some of the best parts of any of the movies,
it's still on par with say, that season of Saved by the Bell where they all got jobs at a resort over summer vacation.
You remember that? Of course you don't; if you're watching this you're not in your 30's.
Summer begins and everybody just so happens to get a job at, of course, a
fashionable resort owned by Sharpay's parents. Sharpay decides for the resort's talent show, she wants Zac Efron as her co-host. This, of course,
angers her incestuous brother. Okay? I'm not doing one who sees this, right? Tell me somebody else sees this!
Of course, he, his girlfriend Gabriella, and all his friends want to be in the talent show too, but Sharpay thinks
that's too many people and tries to, of course, sabotage him into only working with her. Okay pretty lame,
but it is made a little bit more interesting when her parents seem to be opening a lot of doors for
scholarships and good schools. This makes him more susceptible to Sharpay and even easier
letting his friends go. While doing the talent show, in the grand scheme of things, is not a big deal
they do make kind of a bigger deal that he is sort of manipulating himself and changing himself to open doors
and he doesn't know how much to hold on to and how much to give up.
This is kind of an interesting subject to talk about and sometimes they do treat it very seriously
but the problem is its dealt with a lot better in the third one, when all the kids are graduating
they're trying to figure out what to do, where to go, what colleges
they're gonna be at, splitting up, discovering who they want to be, and yeah...
It's just done better, more realistic, more thought-provoking, and this is just the typical "You're letting that girl brainwash you, man.
Who are you? I don't know who you are anymore." Granted,
its done a little bit more delicately and they don't entirely make Sharpay the villain, but the version I saw is almost two
hours and it feels like it. When they try telling jokes and doing visual humor, it works, but a lot of the drama
And yeah, even a lot of a song numbers aren't exactly that strong.
I feel like they open with too strong of a punch. That first musical number was such a big deal that
nothing in the rest of the movie could possibly top it. So a lot of it
just kind of meanders. A good half of it is them just moping around the resort and skipping in kitchens. Okay,
rewind that, we gotta see that again. Can somebody explain what this is?
And while nothing in it is certainly bad
it doesn't really all gel together either. I remember kind of looking at my watch saying, "Man,
how long is this movie? Can we get to the funny stuff again or can you throw one of them a basketball?
I don't know, just do something like what you were doing before!" But yeah, when it gets to those enjoyably corny scenes,
they are enjoyably corny. The last-minute duet with that pops up at the end had me laughing so hard when it's revealed
who he's gonna do the duet with that I had a pause it. I was laughing so much.
You just shrug and lovingly say, "Only the Disney Channel would give us something so schmultzy." And like I said, that
stuff surprisingly doesn't bother me. That's part of the fun. For me,
its just when it's slow,
serious, and been done a million times, adding nothing really new. It by no means does it throughout the entire film,
but it does it through a lot that you do kind of move around in your seat a bit.
There's not even a high school musical in it. The first one
we don't get to see the High School Musical and this one that they just write it out of the entire movie. Talk about false
advertising. Does it need to exist? No. Does it really further the characters that much? Not really. But again
there are some very impressive, very creative, and even very funny scenes. I guess if you liked the first one,
you'll like this one enough.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see some parts again, either to laugh or just admire
how well choreographed it is. Kind of a mixed bag,
but that's High School Musical in a nutshell to me. Get your dance shoes on and check it out for yourself.