It was summer 2007, about a year after it premiered on Disney channel, that I first watched High School Musical and I loved it. I was 13 at the time. I'm 24 now and, while wandering through the shelves, I picked High School Musical's DVD and rewatch it because, you know, we all need to do something stupid once in a while.
It's New Year's Eve at a ski resort. Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), the star of a small-town high school basketball team, and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens), a math genius, are forced to sing karaoke together and instantly click. After the break, Troy returns to school only to find that Gabriella is a new student there. They become friends quickly and decide to audition for the upcoming school musical but the cliques they belong to don't approve and try to separate them. On top of that, drama queen Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) and her brother Ryan (Luca Grabeel) try to prevent them from getting the leading roles in the musical.
Or I could just have said, it's the Disney channel version of Grease, which translates into, unoriginal, quite stupid and predictable story that doesn't make a lot of sense and it's filled with plot holes. Moreover, it does have absolutely no drama and no climax. Despite that and the fact that I'm an adult woman, I still found it a tiny bit engaging and, no matter how old you are or what's your generation, it's not that hard to relate to the story. I didn't/do, but I can imagine people relating.
Same goes for the characters. They are terribly written as they are nothing but a bunch of idiotic high school stereotypes, with very little characterization and even less development --actually, there's none--, and they are atrociously played --seriously, these kids can't act for shit. Also, where's the chemistry between Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens? Weren't like dating at the time?-- but a few of them, the good guys, are likeable and quite sympathetic.
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| Disney-ABC Domestic Television |
The songs are pretty lame and cheesy, just like everything else about High School Musical, and they don't move the plot forward one bit, but they are also pretty catchy and quite unforgettable. I mean, it's been 10 years since I last saw this movie and I still know the lyrics to most songs. The musical numbers, however, are all lip-synched and the audio/video synchronization is completely off.
But again, in spite of all the flaws, I still was able to enjoy High School Musical.
What a perfect review of this movie. It's completely idiotic, silly, cheesy, vapid, poorly constructed, and somehow still enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI had never seen any of those films. Then again, they're probably not for me as my experience with high school was horrible.
ReplyDeleteI feel you. High school wasn't that great for me either.
DeleteOh man my nieces loved this. I was 18 when it came out but I watched this one and the second with them. You're right, they're total stereotypes but I think these movies are hilarious in retrospect. I'll give them this - these kids could all sing and dance in ways that were believable for their characters.
ReplyDeleteThey are! In fact, I'm having a good time rewatching them.
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