reviewed by: Rissi C.

      

Most of us have probably at least heard of the phenomenon that is High School Musical! I had heard of the sensational musical that everyone was talking of but it hadn’t been a main priority to see. During the hype for the sequel there were many features on this, so after seeing and reading a few things on the stars and recently seeing Zac Efron in Hairspray, I decided to rent this one rainy Saturday afternoon.

Most high schools have the separate cliques: the athletes, the surfers, the geeks, the cheerleaders and the bright kids. Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) is the basketball star of his school East High, and with a championship game coming up, basketball is pretty much all he’s concentrating on. Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) is a young lady constantly moving to new schools due to her mothers’ work. She's known as the "brainy new girl." Her latest transfer is to East High. Seeing Gabriella come into the class, Troy is pleasantly surprised when realizing that she’s the same girl he met a couple of weeks earlier at a New Year’s Eve party, where they were chosen to sing karaoke together, and both discovered they have a passion for music. After sharing phone numbers, they parted. Not expecting to see Troy again, let alone go to the same school together, Gabriella is thrilled to see a familiar face on her first day.

At drama class that day, their teacher announces the plans for a musical. Discussing their karaoke, Troy and Gabriella wonder if they should try out. Troy decides no because his friends don’t know anything about his singing and it wouldn’t be “cool” in his group, while Gabriella doesn’t want to join anything her first year. In addition to the problem that Troy’s friend Chad (Corbin Bleu) and teammates just wouldn’t understand, there’s Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) a popular snotty girl who has starred as the lead in “all seventeen musicals” along with her brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel). Despite their intentions, Gabriella and Troy do end up at the tryouts and what starts out as a simple song turns out to be a callback for the lead parts! And what began as an uncomplicated one time karaoke song turns out to be a discovery of music, friendship and lessons learned.   

I’m not certain why this Disney channel movie wasn’t of interest to me, as most of them are and end up being cute, wholesome fun. Anything without content concern that has a cute storyline is worth taking notice. High School Musical is such a movie. The energy brought to the screen by the young stars is contagious. Zac, Ashley, Vanessa, Lucas and Corbin are all fantastic! Each one is wonderful in their part and their characters learn valuable lessons and are better off because of it. For once the “mean” girl wasn’t actually mean, but more of a snotty character, which is refreshing. Zac and Vanessa were well cast, and had a nice, almost innocent chemistry. Corbin and Lucas were the comedy, and did quite well as the “sidekicks." The music is peppy and wholesome fun! Most of the songs are just nice tunes with a great beat to them, but there are two or so more “romantic” routines. The fabulous dancing deserves mentioning as well.

While this may only be a TV movie, the choreography was really fabulous; great dance numbers filled with energy and bright colors. While this is just good, clean entertainment it also has some wonderful lessons to be learned. Troy’s dad (the coach of the basketball team) even comes to realize there is more to life then just one thing and that you should have fun doing the things you love. This movie basically has nothing in it to offend anyone. There is the normal teen romance played out, but it was very well done. There is one sweet little kiss. Troy’s friends do some things that they later regret and apologize for and end up helping Troy and Gabriella in the end. The kids have to come up with a plan in order to save Troy and Gabriella’s tryout, but it isn’t the normal over-the-top teen pranks. Another refreshing plus was the addition of appropriate clothing worn by the girls; while there was a couple of shorter tops that showed some skin it was a big change, and for the better.

If you haven’t seen High School Musical I would encourage you to sit down and watch this delightful movie. It will be a long wait for the sequel to release on DVD, but hopefully it will be worth it with just as much of a fun storyline, enjoyable dance numbers and continued innocent fun. Let the credits roll until the end of your DVD, as there is a funny finish that is sure to give you one last laugh. The finale “We’re all in this together” will leave you with a smile on your face and humming the tunes long after the final credits are done!