High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Director: Kenny Ortega
Screenwriter: Peter Barsocchini
Starring: Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu
Running Time: 112 minutes
Certificate: U

As their final year at East High comes to a close, teen couple Troy (Efron) and Gabriella (Hudgens) find themselves hurtling towards heartbreak when graduation and college threatens to throw them 1,000 miles apart. The brainy Gabriella is set on leaving to study at Stanford, while jock Troy is torn over a future in basketball or the theatre. Couple that dilemma with the strains of staging a spring musical, and you have the threadbare plot of the High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

This sequel isn't a terrible film, just half a good one. As should be expected, director Ortega steers the musical sequences with gusto, verve and invention, however his grasp of choreographing actors with spoken dialogue is questionable. When Troy and Gabriella sit in a tree house contemplating the end of their relationship, her whimpering delivery of the line "I wish it would all just stop, or at least slow down," will have most over the age of 14 reaching for the sick bucket. The connecting threads between each dance number are corny, contrived and in need of more dramatic friction - HSM 3 is completely lost without a song.

If Summer Heights High's egomaniacal drama teacher Mr. G clamped eyes on Zac Efron, he'd be his idea of a "triple threat". The franchise's leading man can sing, dance and act (even if does look like he could burst into tears at any moment). However, he hits a brick wall with the script's ultra-sappy characterisation. Just after the midway point, Troy climbs up to Gabriella's bedroom with a margerhetta pizza ("just the way you like it"). His selection of the blandest thing on the menu sums up their uninteresting relationship.

Returning as Sharpay Evans, Ashley Tisdale is excellent as the revered and feared school bitch. She often lurks at the edge of frame or pops up out of nowhere like a Disneyfied version of Halloween's serial killer Michael Myers. Her air-headed machinations with brother Ryan (Grabeel) provide flickers of glee when the action sags in between the music. Their song 'I Want It All', with just a hint of incestuousness, lifts the film after a laboured start.

HSM 3 really hits its stride with three back-to-back musical numbers, 'The Boys Are Back', 'Walk Away' and 'Scream'. The first is an intricate traverse across a junkyard using battered trucks and tyres as obstacles; the second a heartfelt ballad for Gabriella as she departs for Stanford; and the third Troy's big showstopper. 'Scream' neatly doffs its cap to Risky Business (a hint at Efron’s positioning as a new superstar?) and Lionel Richie's 'Dancing On The Ceiling' video. The bizarre lyrics, though, throw the film into a new light - as Troy screams about playing for the "right team" and "finding myself", you wonder if the whole film is a metaphor for him coming out of the closet.

HSM 3 is a little too long and offers a kitchy idealisation of teen life, but its themes of self-discovery and holding on to dreams will satisfy the younger and less weary viewer. Like some kind of Saw series for tweens, it's a safe bet that brand name alone will keep the High School Musical franchise chugging along for years to come even if the quality of the product is debatable.


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