Posted on Saturday, 25th October 2008 by astronomius
HSM 3 explosively begins with the final basketball game of the Wildcats’ season (with the first musical number “Now or Never”), and quickly winds down at a celebration at Troy Bolton’s (Zac Efron) house to slowly build all the way up to Senior Class graduation.
Troy and Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) spend a lot of time together deciding what they’re going to do with their lives, as Ms. Darbus (Alyson Reed) assigns her Drama class to create and star in a musical about their own High School experiences, hopes and dreams after they graduate; Darbus plainly, ironically titles their final stage project “Senior Year”, the students are instructed to write and perform larger-than-life versions of themselves for the stage, and their stage scenes all play out during the course of the film.
Of course, we also find out what Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale), Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) and new couple Chad (Corbin Bleu) and Taylor (Monique Coleman) are up to, but the story mainly focuses on Gabriella (Hudgens) and Troy (Efron, both pictured here at right).
A romantic interest sparks between Ryan and Kelsi (Olesya Rulin) as Sharpay makes one final (secret) campaign to win Troy and schemes to quickly send Gabriella from East High to her next academic plateau, Stanford University; Sharpay’s selfish scheme unwittingly undercuts the entire graduating class by doing so, because many of them feel the empty void of Gabriella’s efforts and presence and have difficulty going on without her… especially Troy.
Remember, though, that they’re “all in this together” and everybody gets a happy ending.
Three new Wildcats are also introduced early on in HSM 3, thereby creating a thread for a possible HSM 4, and they seem interesting enough to write a new story around: Jimmy “Rocketman” Zara (Matt Prokop - hilarious !), his sidekick Donny (Justin Martin) and Tiara Gold (played diabolically by Jemma McKenzie-Brown).
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Many of HSM’s regular cast and crew (if not all of them) returned to make Disney’s “High School Musical 3″ a memorable movie event and a grand slam with moviegoers at the box office in its opening weekend revenue of over $42 million, much to the embarrassment of stanch movie critics.
Kenny Ortega returned to direct and choreograph along with Bonnie Story and Charles Klapow, composer David Lawrence again directed the music, as well as cinematographer Daniel Aranyo and film editor Seth Flaum.
The acting in HSM 3 was beefed up for the big screen and lead actors Zac and Vanessa proved themselves more than capable of carrying scenes together and on their own; their onscreen chemistry together is really amazing and they look so comfortable with each other (their real-life relationship paid off, other actor-couples take note). Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay is riveting and electric whenever she is onscreen, and Lucas Grabeel’s performance is more polished and punctuated than before. Manly Ortega, Kenny’s lovable Yorkie, also returned from HSM 2 as Sharpay’s purse pooch “Boi”.
Peter Barsocchini (the co-creator of HSM) turned in an excellent rewrite after the original script was found to have several problems.
Ironically, the problem of separating Gabriella Montez from the rest of the Wildcats in the story seems to parallel the problem producers had with wanting to keep Vanessa in the regular HSM cast after her real-life scandal last year; fortunately, (just about) everybody forgave her.
I enjoyed all of the songs, but six songs really stand out memorably to me from the soundtrack and play much better in the movie than in their Official Video versions: Now or Never (a rousing, definitive fight-cheer), Right here, Right Now (a definitive, romantic song about Troy’s and Gabriella’s relationship), I Want It All (the definitive, big, brassy showstopper of the HSM series), The Boys Are Back (a definitive Rock/Pop song about Troy’s and Chad’s friendship), Walk Away (a definitive Soul/Pop song about Gabriella’s tenuous resolve) and the slow, stirring We’re All In This Together - Graduation Mix (a poignant reflection for the Senior Class at East High).
All of the musical numbers sung by the characters on stage in the story are switched to from various situations they’re in, so the story still advances that way, and the audience is left to assume they are the same routines, costumes and sets used for their final project for Darbus; a very clever plot device and a great way to save a lot of time telling the story.
What’s funny (when you stop and think about it) is the story makes all of the routines look made up on the spot and we know they’re not, but that’s the wonder of movie musical magic.
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“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” is a fun, big-budget, big screen celebration of beloved Disney characters as they anxiously prepare to leave East High, with an abundance of Disney movie magic moviegoers count on and pay for; definitely worth seeing on the big screen as everything is at its best in the series.
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Made by Walt Disney Pictures, released in the US on October 24th, 2008
Length: 112 minutes
Grade: A+
Posted in Disney Movies, Disney Music | Comments (0)
