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High School Musical 3: Senior Year |
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Hey, we all gotta grow up sometime. That's what those Wildcats at Albuquerque's East High are realizing as they embark on their fantabulous senior year. No longer will life just be about basketball games and summer jobs and high school musicals: Graduation is just around the corner and semi-adulthood lurks on the horizon—and so, it seems, do some bittersweet good-byes.
 Troy and Gabriella, East High's dancing and singing royal couple, are planning to attend different colleges. Gabriella's nailed down a prestigious spot at Stanford University, while Troy's torn between playing basketball for the University of Albuquerque—his dad's first choice, not his—and hoofing it over to The Juilliard School in New York.
Much musical angst ensues.
Meanwhile, dimpled-but-dastardly Sharpay plots another takeover of East High's last musical—and a chance to finally sing that elusive duet with Troy.
And, well, that's about it, storyline-wise. But, really, who loves the High School Musical films for their plots? HSM3 is cinematic comfort food, bursting with everything fans have come to love about the series: Ear-catching tunes, foot-stomping dances, Troy and Gabbie making googly eyes at each other and Sharpay being ... Sharpay.
:: Review
High School Musical 3: Senior Year is stuffed with more lessons than a math course!
It salutes friendship, family, responsibility and opportunity. It embraces the idea of dreaming big—a time-honored Disney theme that, in other movies, can sometimes feel a tad irresponsible. But here, wishing upon a star is tempered by the onrushing reality of adulthood. "Maybe I don't see life as a ball game anymore, man," Troy tells best friend Chad. But there’s more...
1) Outside of a few slightly revealing costumes (most far tamer than you'll see at a typical American mall), HSM3 is refreshingly clean. 2) It boasts reasonably upright moral messages. 3) The kids in it are flat-out talented. 4) It's got heart. 5) It's a fantasy story about what high school could (should) be without an ounce of overt cynicism to be found anywhere. 6) While wholeheartedly embracing formula, it somehow transcends it and becomes ... entertaining.
It isn't going to win many awards. But it may make old movie buffs (old movies, not old buffs) fondly recall 1940s-era black-and-white musicals—where the guy gets the girl, where people burst into song with little-to-no provocation, and where most every problem can be worked out by dancing up a storm.
The High School Musical series, including its latest installment, is about nothing more (or less) than unflinching, unblushing, unspoiled fun.
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