The Little TV Movie that Became a Phenomenon

This was just supposed to be a cheap TV movie made for The Disney Channel. Instead, it has become a huge hit in the pre-teen crowd with a top selling soundtrack, a concert tour happening during the 2006 holiday season, and two DVD releases.

It's New Year's Eve when Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) meet. They're picked at random from the crowd attending a teen party at a ski lodge to sing a karaoke song. To their surprise, they actually sound great together and the sparks begin to fly.

Returning from vacation, Gabriella is starting at a new school. She's hoping to shed her geeky girl image. On her first day, she runs into Troy, who is the captain of the basketball team at her new school. He's busy getting ready for the upcoming playoffs against their rival school.

In the back of their minds is the magic that happened when they sang together. The sign ups for the school's winter musicale have been posted, and both of them are tempted to sign up. Of course, that means Troy would have to face his friends, who think he should be focusing all of his time on basketball. And Gabriella would have to deal with Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) who, along with her brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel), is always the star of the school programs. Is it worth the potential social upheaval to audition?

While I am noticably older then the target age, this movie had been on for about five minutes before I got a smile on my face, and the smile didn't leave until the movie was over. The story is fairly predictable, but the movie is lots of fun and the songs are great.

Instead of doing traditional Broadway type songs, the music here is pop. Of course, this works well with the intended audience of pre-teens and early teens. They even work in a hip-hop song and a salsa song to spice things up a little. About half the songs in this movie are auditions for the winter musicale, but they are also very appropriate to the storyline. This actually starts with the karaoke song that Troy and Gabriella sing at the beginning "Start of Something New." For the climax, Sharpay and Ryan sing "Bop to the Top" which talks about getting to the top no matter what while our heroes sing "Breaking Free," a song about their desire to break out of the molds they are in. And the dance routines are fun as well, especially one involving the basketball team.

The actors do a great job with their roles. Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens are especially great as the leads. There is a real chemistry between them that makes all their scenes so believable. I was a little annoyed by the over the top acting of Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay and Alyson Reed as the drama teacher. I know it was done on purpose, but I could have done with out it. Over all, it was a minor complaint.

A new two disc edition of the movie is just now hitting the stores. It features two versions of the movie. One is the regular film, but the other is the sing along edition that features the words to the songs at the bottom of the screen. The other features are ok. There are two music videos, a very brief behind the scenes featurette, and a "Learn the Moves" featurette that sort of teaches you a part of the dancing from "Bop to the Top." All of these were on the original one disc edition. The new version features new interviews with the cast and crew, music videos for "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," "Breaking Free Remix," "We're All in This Together Remix," "We're All in This Together," and "Eres Tu," and a behind the scenes look at the Hollywood premier of the movie. Most of these would really appeal to the intended audience of the movie instead of the adult fans like me, so I found them less then exciting.

While most of the bonus features aren't worth getting excited about, the movie itself is great fun. I'm just sorry I rented it since now I'll have to spend more money to buy it.

High School Musical Reviews:
High School Musical 2
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
High School Musical Soundtrack
High School Musical 2 Soundtrack
High School Musical 3 Soundtrack