WARNING: Not for anyone with more important things to do!
by Jasmine Kabera
Horrible acting, a vague plot and twenty-something-year-olds pretending to be teenagers…ah, it must be another High School Musical movie. With the success of the two other frighteningly peppy High School Musical films, the evil overlords over at Walt Disney studios were curious to see if they could once again suck the money dry out of nervous parents with buzzing preteens and teenagers barley past puberty.
They’d probably never heard the saying “curiosity killed the cat”– or in this case curiosity not only killed the cat, it mutilated it. The singing and dancing was literally like watching an hour long boy-band video. The stereotypical jocks, geeks and cheerleaders were as fake as Ashley Tisdale’s nose. Troy (Zac Efron) still seemed to find any chance to do the same pose (his hands outstretched with his head titled towards the sky) during every song, and Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) was still plotting a hostile take-over of the drama class.
Along the way there was a plot, sort of. It is senior year and fate has it out for tween heartthrob, captain of the basketball team, Troy, and his girlfriend the geeky yet beautiful Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) as they are once again being torn apart by the unavoidable force that is high school graduation. In an effort to try to cling to their adolescence a little while longer, the gang, meaning anyone who had at least five lines in the last two films, decides to do a musical.
About high school.
At some point between cramming in corny dialogue and extra scenes for Zac Efron, the writers were probably going, “Oh right, the plot!”
In an effort to come between Troy and Gabriella, the super diva Sharpay and her new evil sidekick Tiara, a British transfer student (Americans can’t have all the fun), began stage one of their badly scripted schemes. They huff and puff over the unfairness of not being recognized for their talents, while plotting to somehow steal the spotlight. The two act as comic relief with their overacting and shallow personalities that would make Paris Hilton roll her eyes.
Tiara discovers that Gabriella has to go for early freshman orientation at Stanford University, which causes a rift between the two lovebirds. The evil Sharpay tells the handsome Troy and he goes to confront fair Gabriella (with a romantic picnic). They had what Disney considers a lovers’ spat, but what I thought was a sickeningly corny five-minute goodbye.
A few days prior to prom Gabriella tells Troy she’s never coming back. So, naturally, Troy belts out some angst filled song that resembles the hideously flashy ensemble in the first and second films, which involves him having an identity crisis. Alas, poor Troy can’t decide whether to accept a basketball scholarship or go to Julliard, just the usual things most teenagers have to deal with.
In the end Gabriella decides she’d rather sacrifice her education than be apart from Troy, and ditches Stanford for the week to go to prom. Troy does not go to either the University of Albuquerque or Julliard and decides to go to Berkley where he can play basketball and study drama also known as “The Great Compromise” (it happens in every Disney movie). It’s sad to think that this franchise has cultivated more than a billion dollars worldwide, not to mention HSM3 raked in $194.7 million (worldwide), and they are laughing all the way to the bank.
