By the time you read this, millions of High School Musical fans will have already watched the made-for-TV movie’s new sequel, High School Musical 2, dozens of times, and maybe more, thanks either to its endless reruns on the Disney Channel (where it premiered to record ratings on August 17) or to wearing out their own recordings of it. The phenomenon that is High School Musical is a little hard to comprehend, especially if you’re outside the franchise’s tween audience, girls between the ages of 9 and 14.
But it’s impossible to deny: The soundtrack to the first movie was the top-selling album of 2006, and since debuting in January of last year the movie has spawned DVDs, a stage version, a concert tour, a novel series, a video game and even an ice show. (An ice show!) The appeal is simple: The world of HSM is one free of war, of racial strife, of class conflict (well, at least in the original). It’s hokey and corny and sappy and entirely wholesome; if a cross-section of American parents dreamed up the ideal entertainment for their children to latch onto, the product would likely be High School Musical.
The new movie, despite its guaranteed monster popularity, faces a dilemma common to any sequel to a story with a simple moral and a tidy resolution: how to reintroduce conflict to a set of characters who were last seen completely conflict-free. The original HSM had a simple “be yourself” message about basketball player Troy (Zac Efron) getting up the courage to buck peer pressure and follow his passion by auditioning for the school musical. By the time the credits rolled, the jocks, the brainiacs (represented by Troy’s chaste girlfriend, Gabriella, played by Vanessa Hudgens), the theater geeks and everyone else in the school had put aside their differences and embraced togetherness (the final musical number was, in fact, “We’re All in This Together”).
The new movie bypasses the actual production of the musical and cuts to the end of the school year, thus making its first mistake and taking the characters out of high school for all but the first production number. Through groan-worthy contrivance, all the major players end up working at a snooty country club, where stuck-up blonde Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and her brother are members. Conveniently, there’s a club talent show, so once again Troy and Gabriella can be pitted against Sharpay for stage dominance.
Troy also has to resist the corrupting influence of Sharpay, who tries to steer him away from his hard-working friends, toward a life of upper-class leisure. Really, though, she’s helping him get a better job and a college scholarship, so the moral message becomes a bit muddled, in contrast to the clear, concise lesson of the first movie (which also worked nicely as a metaphor for coming out of the closet). The musical numbers are just about as bland and forgettable as last time, the same modern dance-pop with a few show-tune touches.
The larger budget does make for some more impressive set pieces, including the opener set back at East High and Sharpay’s “Fabulous,” with some fun, Busby Berkeley-esque choreography (including synchronized swimmers). But the writing and acting is still, well, about at the level of a made-for-Disney Channel movie, and the rank opportunism is evident in the jumbled storyline and rushed feel of the production. Most tweens, of course, won’t care, and the phenomenon rolls on: Expect High School Musical 3 to premiere in movie theaters in 2008.
High School Musical 2
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