This is going to sound wishy-washy, but HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 is both really, really good and really, really bad.
For some reason, I find myself unable to combine those two scores and come up with a summative analysis of the film. I have to look at these things separately.
So, for the record...
THE BAD (always start with the bad, right?):
Being a high school teacher and the father of a Zac Efron-worshiping almost-7-year-old, it is infuriating how this film--even worse than the two before--builds up a ridiculous image of high school life. Almost nothing that happens in the film is ever going to happen to any of our kids. They won't have a yearbook office that looks like the offices of Vanity Fair or a rooftop garden accessible for students to make out (well, dance...Gabriella is the biggest cock-blocker in film history!) in the pouring rain.
The most popular girl, frustrating as she will be to the other girls, will never be given a double-wide locker painted in her signature color and a personal assistant who is handed her lunch on an already-prepared tray with a rose in a vase included with it.
No high school anywhere will allow the students to write said musical, talented as they might be. And the list goes on.
The myth of high school life created by these films is well-intentioned but I am worried about its real-life damage. I'm lucky I can tell my daughter the truth, and other parents should do the same.
The other major let-down with HSM3 is the dizzying lack of logic and timing in the film. Anyone who hates musicals for the sheer fact that characters randomly burst into song and set pieces fly in at just the right moment will despise this film. That is exactly what happens for an hour and a half. Rain pours at just the right time, basketballs fall from the sky in perfect position to be high-kicked and punched, and half of the numbers jump cut from the two-character reality they start in to a full-cast, hyper-costumed extravaganza.
Having said this, the worst scene in the film is also one of the best, and herein lies my dilemma. Troy and Chad drive Troy's nearly-dead pickup truck to a junkyard and commence with a best bud's hip-hop throwdown after the owner of the junkyard tells two 17-year-olds "I'm leaving, but take what you want and lock up for me when you leave," which would NEVER HAPPEN. You know what else would never happen? Two rich kids like Troy and Chad would never know where to FIND a junkyard, much less be driving a truck like that. When you see the Bolton house, complete with a dream treehouse, you laugh out loud to see Troy's beater of a truck. Anyway...back to the junkyard where, mid-song, out jumps a bevy of cool dude dancers to throw down with them, only to magically disappear under car parts at the end of the number. Yes...this is a musical for fans of musicals only!
THE GOOD:
And yet, crabby as I am about the implausibilities at every turn, the choreography is ridiculously good, and the young cast is great at executing it. Say what you want about Efron, but he's great at what he does. He deserves credit for holding this thing together...remember that they didn't even let him SING the part of Troy in the first film! He's come so far.
And even if the sentiment is over the top and the songs are carbon copies of songs from the last two films (almost at 1-to-1 ratio!) there is still a great message in this movie, too.
Maybe the best thing about HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 is watching the kids watching the movie and knowing that musicals are back in movie theatres and receiving the kind of love they got so many decades ago. You can pick holes in logic and criticize plausibilty all you want, but there's nothing wrong with that.
2.5 out of 4
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