High School Musical 2

High School Musical (the first one) is really one of the better family films made, and definitely the best in recent years. It was fun, filled with infectious show-stopping tunes, an incredibly attractive cast, and was delightfully cheesy. It even managed to pull off a good, if over-done, message. All in all it was a well-deserved hit. But when the kids left high school and went to summer vacation, somehow some of the magic got lost.

In other words, High School Musical started thinking highly of itself. This sequel (High School Musical 2) is the disappointing product of that high thinking- the movie takes itself way too seriously, and that is it's main downfall. Apparently what Disney didn't realize was that what made us all love High School Musical was the cheesiness, the lameness of the whole scenario. But here, gone are the days of clear voiced showtunes and high school musical auditions. They are replaced with a show that really tries to focus on the drama and even try to make itself be realistic- something this film was never supposed to be. HSM 2 fell into that oh so unfortunate pit of trying way too hard. Unfortunately, we're not even always sure what they're trying to do: Make a serious and realistic movie, or desperately cling to innocence. What we get is a rather unsatisfying in-between.

High School Musical 2 starts on the last day of school before summer. The conniving Sharpay snarls the manager of her parent's resort into giving Troy, her long-time crush, a summer job. Troy, however, also talks the rather easy manager into giving all of his friends jobs too. Now, they are all in this together (which you will hear said 20 million times), and Troy and g/f Gabriella are looking at some serious relationship issues.

It does have it's moments where it returns to it's former glory, mostly featuring the brother and sister characters of stage-diva Sharpay and her lost-in-the-flow bro Ryan. Ashley Tisdale's Sharpay continues to be the most interesting character on the show, but is this time matched by the character of her brother, played wonderfully by Lucas Grabeel. Mr. Grabeel proves himself to be on par with Corbin Bleu the other good actor of the group, who plays Troy's best friend, Chad. There are times when it seems like HSM 2 is going to start going into a better and much more interesting story-line. But that never happens. Instead, they end up mixing together so many petty and incomplete little subplots that by the middle we're not exactly sure what's going on.

We don't even always have the music to relieve us this time, because somehow the decision was made to make all the songs a mix of disco and hip hop, including electronically mixing the actor's voices. It doesn't work well. While all the songs are probably fine songs by themselves, there does not seem to be a single showtune in the film.

In the end, High School Musical was a let-down for me. It is certainly watchable, mostly because of the good acting and genuinely funny and exciting moments delivered by Sharpay and Ryan. However, one can only hope that if they do indeed make a third as is planned, they get back to what made the original such a classic. 5/10 stars.

Jay Addison