“Enough reading!” a
worried mother tells her teenage daughter firmly. This all starts on New Year’s
Eve. The daughter responds, “Can I have my book back?” Here is where viewers
can easily gather that the girl, Gabriella Montez, played by Vanessa Anne
Hudgens, is one of those shy, smart kids.
However, people
watching this don’t have to do much gathering in this silly Disney Channel
movie, released in 2006. Smart students are formal, athletes are noisy, and
teachers say superior, absurd things in superior, absurd ways. Anita Gates said
in her review, “A drama teacher, for instance, informs insufficiently
respectful students trying out for the winter musical that theater -- she
pronounces it the-a-TUH -- "is a temple of art." The bad singers who
try out are screechier than anything ever heard on "American Idol."”
The winter musical is
the entire movie’s story. Gabrielle, the new girl in school, has a great voice
and may try out. Troy Bolton, voiced by Zac Efron, the all-star basketball
star, wants to but knows his teammates will make fun of him. Gabrielle and Troy
have met before, when they were forced into a karaoke duet while on vacation
with their families.
When they do try out
and are a hit, the rightly named Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas
Grabeel), who always play the leads in every high school musicals, are worried.
During the extremely long time between the main auditions and the callbacks, a
lot goes on.
Sharpay and Ryan plan
against Gabrielle and Troy. The basketball players want Troy to focus on the
upcoming big game instead. Gabrielle’s smart friends explain how much they need
her in the scholastic decathlon. (Both of these events will happen on the same
day as the callbacks.) There’s a huge musical number about the qualities of
fitting in with your friends. Gates said, “The lyrics, in response to
confessions like one male athlete's about his secret love of baking, include
"No, no, no/ Stick to the stuff you know" and "Stick to the
status quo."”
Kenny Ortega, the
director, is a choreographer who also worked on movies like “Dirty Dancing.”
Gates noted, “Here, his all-student-body dance numbers hint at a combination of
influences: a little Bollywood and a little of Patricia Birch's work from
"Grease."” His directing influences are immeasurable.
Gates said, “There are
those who may make the argument that young viewers are such idiots that they
need constant repetition and wild exaggeration to get whatever point a story is
trying to make. (Well, maybe some 3-year-olds.) And it would be unfair not to
salute the movie's message about broadening one's horizons and not being
limited by stereotypes or peer pressure. But when an admirable message is
packaged in such treacle, it just makes the message seem treacly, too.”
I know that I may be
praising this movie, but I actually found this to be somewhat dull. I know for
a fact that I’m not the right target audience for this movie. Maybe if I saw
this when it came out when I was in the second half of high school, I might
have related to this a lot, but seeing it now, even though I think it touches
on serious issues that high school students go through, I just didn’t get into this.
Like I said, as an adult watching this, I knew I was the wrong person to watch
this, despite there were good things about it. Some of the songs were nice, but
it could have used more energized numbers other than the slow moments. Check it
out if you want and see for yourself.
Tomorrow I will look at
another decent film in “Disney Channel Original Movie Month.”
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