To say Amy is a fan of the High School Musical franchise would be like saying Scooby-Doo has a faint penchant for Scoobysnacks. In Amy’s wardrobe alone she has High School Musical socks, shoes, t-shirts, pajamas, and jewelry. That’s not even to mention the High School Musical dolls, stickers, albums, posters, school bags, mugs and activity books that burst from every toy draw and bookshelf.
Oh yes, we know all about High School Musical in our house.
There’s a lot of snobbism abut this sort of film. Cynical mutterings about them being manufactured product rather than artistic expression. But to be fair you could say that about 90% of all forms of popular culture. Excellent as it was, the Iron Man movie would have been no less focused grouped. Just because a film is not targeted at you doesn’t mean to say that it’s automatically rubbish.
There is quality in the High School Musical trilogy. The dancing and choreography is good, the catchy pop songs well crafted, and the acting is above par for a product from the Disney Channel (you want to see bad acting then just take a look at the Hannah Montana TV show). It may be artificial and manufactured, but so is Diet Coke and it still tastes damn good.
Which is not to say that I don’t have problems with the franchise. The all pervasive merchandising leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I saw some High School Musical kitchen roll in Sainsbury’s the other day. If there is a more blatant attempt by manufacturers to harness the force of pester power then I don’t want to see it. Although to be fair it’s probably no worse than that attached to my own childhood’s holy trinity of movies, Star Wars. In fact even the thought of a roll of R2D2 kitchen roll has me reaching for my wallet.
But I digress.
High School Musical 3 had a significantly bigger budget than the previous two movies, and it shows. The musical numbers are more spectacular, the sets more expansive, and the whole thing feels more polished. Despite this however I think it’s probably the weakest in the trilogy.
The problem isn’t the increasingly obvious age disparity between the actors and the characters they are portraying (Amy: “Why are those grown-ups still at school Daddy?”), but the storyline.
I accept that in a musical the plot is really only something to link the songs together, and certainly have no problem with a basic story; especially in a film aimed at children. But I do like my movies to at least go somewhere. High School Musical 3 just wanders around aimlessly without a purpose. There is an underlying theme surrounding others trying to choose the main protagonists future for them. But that vein was pretty effectively tapped for High School Musical 2, and to use it again just feels like a bit of a rehash. And also, while that motif is very relevant to people actually of the age of the characters, it pretty much goes above the head of the core audience of the film.
There are also far too many characters. The bigwigs at Disney no doubt wanted to leave the franchise open for more sequels and so needed to shoehorn some younger characters in there so there’d be someone to take up the baton for High School Musical 4. This left the film feeling cluttered and a little confusing. In my view they should have just focused more on Troy, Gabriella, and Sharpay with all the other characters and their subplots much further in the background.
We’ve already got High School Musical 3 on DVD, so watching it on Blu-ray was a good opportunity to compare and contrast. And I must say I’m still very impressed with the format. There were quite a few interesting questions asked in my previous review which I intend to tackle in a dedicated post of it’s own; but in short the best way to describe it is it’s like watching a moving photograph rather than a TV screen. Everything is just crisper and sharper.
One thing I did notice however was the length of time it takes to actually start playing the movie and the special features. I’m assuming it’s because the discs have a lot more data on them than DVD, but it certainly does take a noticeably long time to fire up. Still, that’s only a minor annoyance.
So would I recommend High School Musical 3? Absolutely, despite its flaws it’s still a highly enjoyable movie. It’s not one I’d recommend for those without kids though. Unlike Wall-E or some of the other Disney movies it doesn’t really hold up to adult sensibilities all that well. Certainly not my own sensibilities anyhow. But that’s OK, because it’s not supposed to.
You can buy the High School Musical Blu-ray
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I’ve got a very small tv, but this weekend I was watching a dvd on a big tv and that’s when I realized there’s a good reason for Blue-ray. It wasn’t únsharp, but it could’ve been a lot better (watched True romance btw).
As for HSM 3, I guess I’m not by far in it’s target audience, so I’ll leave this one on the shelves.
@Arjan, Blu-ray is made for big TV’s really. Ours is relatively small for a modern one. it’s still good, but on a bigger one you’d really notice the difference.
You have my sympathy. The damn thing’s bad enough on normal dvd and a crap telly!
Dotterels last blog post..New kid on the blog 2
@Dotterel, It’s not bad exactly, just not aimed at the likes of us and gets a little wearing after the 20th viewing.
Mr Pops saw a clip of this film on GMTV one morning and asked me what on earth it was, his reply to my reply of ‘High School Musical 3′ was ‘Mmm pity it wasn’t Columbine The Musical 1′.
He is a naughty man.
@morticia, yeah, thanks for that Morticia :)
@Dan,
I thought of you this morning when they had the ukelele society on the Today programme – you can probably listen again via R4 website – it was on about 7.45am and there was a very good version of Ode to Joy.
I always think movies like this do exactly what the whole industry was supposed to do…they transport you away from your own life for 90 minutes of enjoyment. There is something honest about this type of film…all of the merch and tie ins and spin offs are just there, on the surface for all to see.
slugs on the refrigerators last blog post..Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezey Goat’s Cheese
@slugs on the refrigerator, yes, it is honest. No pretensions, no false lines drawn between low and high art. It is what it is.
The merch however is exploitative and has less of my vote to be honest. although I still buy the bloody stuff because it makes Amy happy.
It’s undoubtedly quality stuff. But I’d still consider having my finger nails removed first. Well, for 30 seconds before plumping for High School Musical on repeat, if I’m honest.
[rq=3675,0,blog][/rq]Terrible, terrible dress sense
@dadwhowrites, I’ve heard that Arcade Fire are doing the music for High school Musical 4
@Dan, and there I was thinking Arcade Fire made good music (saw them live, really cool).
@Arjan, I was just teasing dadwhowrites i’m afraid as he’s a big fan.
@Dan, thanks for jolting my poor heart..
there is nothing that could beat High School Musical 1. it is the best compared to Part 2 and Part 3