High School Musical [G]

During a New Year’s Eve party, Troy and Gabriella meet and karaoke together, showing off great singing voices. When they get back to school though, they conform to the high school norms with Troy being the popular basketball jock and Gabriella being the beautiful brains. But when auditions for the Winter Musicale pop up, the two secretly audition for the leads, thus sparking a chain reaction that is going to redefine the status quo of their high school society. 

This movie was huge in my high school years ago, the original Disney Channel telemovie that sparked a global craze. For the life of me, I could never understand why. To be honest, this is the third time that I’ve watched it and this time I’m slightly drunk and it’s the most that I’ve enjoyed this movie. It’s just so bad! The level of cheesiness is just excruciatingly cringe-worthy; maybe that was why these movies did so well, because they were so bad you could not help but laugh at them. For whatever reason High School Musical has found fans in an array of ages and, to be fair, showcased a fair amount of talent, all of whom have gone on to have good careers. 

During a New Year’s Eve party, Troy and Gabriella meet and karaoke together, showing off great singing voices. When they get back to school though, they conform to the high school norms with Troy being the popular basketball jock and Gabriella being the beautiful brains. But when auditions for the Winter Musicale pop up, the two secretly audition for the leads, thus sparking a chain reaction that is going to redefine the status quo of their high school society. 

You have to appreciate this movie for what it is: catchy songs, high-powered dance moves, and cheesy, overacted characters. The cast is pretty much made up of triple threats and, despite the fact that it’s cheesy and childish and lame in the extreme, the whole High School Musical trilogy acted as a great stepping stone for some real talent. After getting his break in this movie, Zac Efron shot to instant stardom and then went on to prove that he could act in 17 Again; breaking out of the type-casting prison. 

So, to talk about High School Musical: Disney cannot portray high school or teenagers to save the studio’s life! Even the gothic/burnouts in this movie were wearing pink! 

The script is very to the point, soaking with messages about friendship and being true to oneself. It’s all very syrupy and overdone. 

The performances, although shooting the actors to universal fame, were nothing spectacular: half of them were wooden and then the other half were overacted. The story itself is rather cheesy and childish and filled with a load of sugary messages with absolutely no drama and far too many happy endings. 

Starring Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Bart Johnson, Olesya Rulin, and Alyson Reed, High School Musical is a monumentally cheesy film filled with music, dancing, egos, stereotypes, dreams, and what can only be referred to as “defiance”. It’s actually really bad and I honestly don’t understand what it was about this movie that sparked such a huge craze.