Camp Rock

Neil Genzlinger started his review by saying, “Some hacker needs to go to work on the Disney computer that randomly mixes the same 10 plot lines and 15 young actors to create new movies and television shows. One of the character threads in there, that of the spoiled teenage diva, desperately needs to be excised; it is so very, very tired that it has begun to drag down any script it finds its way into.”

Like the one for “Camp Rock,” a highly promoted musical movie starring the then new band Jonas Brothers and released in 2008 on the Disney Channel. The movie has some highlights, but a lot of it is centered on the local diva of the main camp that it’s hard to focus on the good areas. You’re so livid at having this slowly made up character that you have seen countless times.

Mitchie (Demi Lovato) really wants to attend a rich-kid rock-and-roll camp, but her family can’t afford it until her mother (Maria Pilar Canals-Barrera) gets hired as the camp rock, letting Mitchie to attend on a discount. Also at the camp is a useless rock star (Joe Jonas) doing some image therapy, along with that intolerable diva (Meaghan Jette Martin). Genzlinger said, “It’s a sort of glass-ceiling character for these movies and shows; either the writers of such stuff think that young viewers can’t handle anything more than blatantly obvious good-gal/bad-gal dynamics, or they have no idea how complex and varied real high school social life is.”

As we’ve seen before, Mitchie tries to hide her identity. The necessary romance, food fight and climactic talent show also are in the movie. Some rather toe-tapping song and dance numbers are included (many of them at the end, in the talent show).

The film has two highlights. One is when the Jonas Brothers (in the movie they’re a band called Connect Three) perform a song Play My Music to the gathered campers, showing the energy and stage presence the film’s other performers don’t have. Genzlinger said, “The other is a fleeting “Barney” wisecrack early on, Ms. Lovato having once been a cast member of that kiddie show with the irritating purple dinosaur. It goes by quickly, but it leaves something pleasant to ponder during the more formulaic patches of “Camp Rock”: it appears that either Barney has switched to a career of flipping burgers, or he has been turned into burgers.”

I’m sorry, but this movie is probably the worst I have seen. I know that’s quite a verdict to make, but this one was just so annoying to watch. I just wanted the film to end because of the constant themes that have been repeated countless times, but with these rockstar, pop artists that are nothing but teenage idiots. If you want to watch it, go ahead, but for people that are not in the age range targeted for this film, they will be really aggravated while watching this. Yes, I know this is my 900th review, and I had to make it on a film that I really got annoyed at.

Look out tomorrow when I look at the last in “The Cheetah Girls” trilogy in “Disney Channel Original Movie Month.”