Genre: Musical, Romance, Family
Rating: C
High School Musical 2 picks
up a bit after where its predecessor left off, at the end of the school year,
as our favourite geeks and jocks begin to worry about summer jobs – and our
ever villainous theatrical types prepare for their summer of leisure at the country
club their parents own. Sharpay Evans
(Tisdale) now has her sights on Troy Bolton
(Efron), and decides that in order to get him she should have him hired to work
at her club. Somehow, this transpires
into all of the Wildcats being hired at the club, because evidently when you’re
in a Disney high school you have to work with all of your friends. Life’s just like that. Because of Sharpay’s influence Troy is able
to rise in the club and gain the attention of the University of Albuquerque’s
basketball team, while his friends are forced to wait tables. Oh, and Sharpay is also manipulating the
scene so that Troy will sing at the club’s annual talent show with her and not girlfriend
Gabriella Montez (Hudgens).
Where to start…. The high point of this film
would be in its music, which is for the most part a lot better than the music
in High School Musical. The
singing itself is good in both, but in this one the lyrics aren’t nearly as
cheesy. Some of the dancing is, but that’s
a whole ‘nother story. I should note,
that the comment on the music being better does not descend to anything sung by
Ryan (Grabeel) and Sharpay, which was just all kinds of bad. The story, is a completely different
issue. As clichéd as the plot was in High School Musical it was at least good. In fact, it was very Shakespearian, clearly
having been inspired in part by Romeo and
Juliet. This story is not as
good. Following the character development
in the original movie, Sharpay does a complete heel turn and digresses back to
her original character. The same can be
said of Troy’s basketball friends, who are right back at hating singing and
dancing like they were in the original movie – they even sing a song about
it. Troy too is back to not wanting to
sing and dance, despite having enjoyed doing so previously. It kind of makes me wonder just what the
purpose of High School Musical was –
beyond setting up the cannon couple. My
one favourite part of this movie, however, was Ryan’s character development, as
he goes from being his sister’s lacky to a genuinely nice guy. Somehow, I suspect the change won’t stick for
High School Musical 3.
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