High School Musical

Made for television movies. What can I say? This may be, no I'm quite sure this IS the first time I've reviewed one of these, but this one's a good candidate. It started playing on the Disney Channel a while ago, not a huge deal, probably bound to fade into the countless other after school specials produced by the house of mouse, right? Wrong! Who could have known that Mickey had this up his sleeve? I can't even tell if he has sleeves. That's not the point though, the point is that here we have kids dancing and singing in a simplistic but fun and catchy musical. It's not Tim Rice ok, heck it's not even Avril Lavigne, it's like a Hillary Duff Musical, except the kids don't seem vain and self promoting, all flaws aside they are a decently talented cast and they carry the movie through some pretty sappy stuff. It's only for the better if you're lucky enough to catch the dance along version that teaches you the steps for the basket ball court concluding number "We're All In This Together" at the commercial breaks. The story is similar to Grease, more or less two different kids who meet on vacation and wind up at school together to deal with the fact that they aren't exactly the people they want to be. The biggest difference between this and Grease isn't the fact that this one is family friendly and entirely wholesome while Grease is a virtual guide to high school indiscretion. The real difference is that the music in this is good, and never involves the main character flaunting himself in tight black pants. I am completely serious when I say that this is a good movie and even if you hate the Disney Channel you can at least TiVo it for a rainy day and you probably won't regret it.

B+