The teens across the nation braced themselves for a monumental occasion – the hit, direct-to-TV movie series was finally hitting the silver screen - High School Musical 3: Senior Year, directed by Kenny Ortega. With a blunt, simple title like that, who would purposefully pay ten dollars to see a movie about an over-dramatized look at their own lives? Well, apparently 20 million viewers did not mind at all. After suffering through a trial of torment from my peers (real men do not watch high school musical movies), I braced myself for the worst, expectations low, and drowsiness already beginning to settle. However, I must admit that this film was a pleasant surprise and not half-bad (of course, not to say that it was half-good either). For those of you who have not seen the first two installments, do not be afraid to taste the newest of the franchise – I felt that the movie did an adequate job of welcoming newcomers.
The story is… well, there really is no story line, but what little there is consists of a few, key high school seniors attempting to create a final masterpiece (a school musical, oh how creative) and decide the paths for their future. Troy Bolton (Zach Efron), the male protagonist, attempts to break free from the chains set by his family and friends, who have already planned a career path for him. After receiving a mysterious letter from Julliard’s Music School for a scholarship (for, unknown to him, his teacher had submitted an application), Troy decides to rethink his basketball calling at the University of Arizona (U of A). His girlfriend Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), on the other hand, finds difficulty choosing between her love for Troy (and essentially East High School) and Stanford’s prestigious Honors Program. While these two conflicts are being resolved, we are introduced to the twins, Ryan (Lucas Gabreel) and Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) Evans, who are also competing for the Julliard’s scholarship. Sharpay, the ditzy yet strangely relatable drama queen, especially aggravates Troy and Gabriella’s relationship by usurping Gabriella’s role in the play. Troy’s right hand man, Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu), acts as the weight upon the protagonist’s mind – choosing anywhere besides the U of A would be a betrayal of friendship, since he and Chad had already agreed on joining the sports team together.
As the title suggests, the film is cluttered with various musical scores, ranging from a rooftop waltz to the cafeteria jazz showdown. The movie opens with an ambitious act that involves playing basketball and singing at the same time (doing either alone is difficult enough for me). The quick camera movements sweeping across player to player, then the succession of quick cuts between the athletes, cheerleaders, and the screaming fans trigger the excitement for both the game and the movie for the audience. As the lead characters Troy and Chad go on to victory, holding their glorious trophy, the movie cuts to the boys riding a broken-down pick-up truck, revealing to the audience the students’ abilities for success and humility at the same time, a transition that I found useful in understanding their personalities. As the entire school has gathered at the Bolton’s residence to celebrate their basketball triumph, Troy and Gabriella share an intimate moment alone on a tree house. To accentuate their isolation from the rest of the world, the camera points upwards from the ground to the couple (thereby blocking out all other characters) and silence the background clutter. While erasing the noise is unrealistic (since there IS an obnoxious party going on below), the audience is able to relate to the stillness by the manner in which the camera operates. As the two sing and spin around the tree house, the camera pans along with them, following along and catching every movement.
Many of the scene changes were well-thought. My favorite is when Sharpay Evans gloats about how she will steal Gabriella’s musical part in the school play, the scene changes into Troy and Chad entering an automobile dumpster, since Sharpay’s trashy attitude matches well with the landfill. There are many other cut-on-actions, such as when a group of students exit their classroom, the film suddenly switches to another throng of teenagers rushing on stage to begin singing, or when Ryan Evans and Kelsi Neilson (Olesya Rulin) start writing a song to the main musical number in the play which smoothly transforms into Troy and Gabriella practicing on stage. Of all the musical scenes in the movie, the one that I found the most captivating was “Scream” (or the “EMO” song as it is known colloquially). Despite the negative reports to this number, the way Kenny Ortega portrayed not only Troy Bolton’s confusion and despair about his future but also the way his mind was spinning is ingenious. As the male protagonist yell/sings through the empty classrooms, there are signs that the entire act may be psychological. Troy sings while walking around a hallway that spins vertically, so that he is stomping across the walls and ceilings. There is also a large banner of him in the cafeteria playing basketball that was never there at any other points in the movie and he forcefully tears it down. As he goes through the school, a banner of “Julliard’s” can be seen, acting as a constant reminder in our eyes and in Troy’s mind of an alternate future.
Despite the various excellent scenes, this Disney product is no match for the Hollywood classical, Grease. Both revolve around high school seniors dealing with the coming of graduation. However, the focus of each differs greatly, thereby making both experiences singular. Grease deals more with “getting the girl” and having sexual intercourse whereas High School Musical 3 takes on a more “family friendly” approach by discussing the worries of applying and going to college. That is not to say that the more innocuous film is the better. The former film is able to better utilize the off-screen, especially since Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and his lover Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John) rarely share screen time, thereby creating a stronger bond of romance as they stare at each other off-screen. Grease also introduces more individualized secondary characters who do not act merely as “stage-props” to help the story progress (with the exception of the T-Birds and Pink Ladies, who act as comic reliefs). The musical pieces also deal with more personal experiences for each character, helping the audience to become sympathetic to their plight rather than merely being relatable, as High School Musical 3 does.
High School Musical 3 is an entertaining film, no doubt about that, with the fast paced action and dance sequences, lovey-dovey romance scenes, and a sound theme of being independent and deciding one’s own future (despite it being rather clichéd by now). But as a film of cinematic value, it fails on multiple levels. If you are searching for a form of escape or merely to kill time, this movie is an excellent choice. But anything above that, stick with the classic Grease, despite it being thirty years old.
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