HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 Extended Edition DVD Review

Written by Aaron Roxby

For a minute, I thought that High School Musical 3 had broken me. As the credits rolled on Troy, Chad, Sharpay and Gabriella's Senior year, I sat there just sort dumbfounded. I really had nothing to say about it. Not because there was nothing worthy of comment. The movie is packed to its awkwardly-blossoming gills with embarrassing dance sequences, paper thin characters and bland songs, but I've already covered much of this in my two previous High School Musical Reviews and really, not that much has changed. As in, this is basically the same damn movie and there are only so many ways to call Zac Efron a girl before you start to sound like you have some serious issues with both your own and the opposite sex (not that it will stop me from doing just that in a few paragraphs). So I decided to sit on it, to give Chad & Company a few days to slosh around in my subconscious and see what nuggets of note are churned up. Here then, are the things that stand out about the latest and first theatrical outing for the kids of East High.

High School Musical 3: Notable Nuggets, Impressions & Fun Facts:

1. Troy Bolton is Still an Insufferable Douche.

Though he doesn't go out of his way to make you hate him like he did in part 2 and his flawless skin has returned to a quasi-human pallor, Troy Bolton still stands as a beacon of everything that was hate-worthy in all of the kids you went to High School with who were far better at being High School kids than you were. His dilemma this time: Julliard is begging to give him a full-ride scholarship, and he didn't even apply, but his Dad and best friend (in what surely must be some kind of record for low expectations) want him to play basketball for U of A. Eagle-eyed readers will note that this is pretty much exactly the same conflict he faced in the first film. In the end, he decides to settle for a full ride to Berkley, so that he can bang his super-hot girlfriend (I am not putting a spoiler alert there because if you can't see every beat in a High School Musical movie coming before the thing begins, you are also not able to read this. NOTE: If you are a High School Musical fan's State-Appointed Handler, please do not read the preceding note out loud (See? I'm not a monster)).

2. Kids in Movies Always Have Improbably Awesome Tree-houses, Even When They Are Way Too Old For Improbably Awesome Tree-houses.

Troy Bolton also has an improbably awesome tree-house. He takes Gabriella up there for some quiet singing time. It has like two separate rooms and a pirate flag and a damn nautical helm. It is an overused, cliched joke to say "that place is nicer than my apartment" but, seriously, its nicer than my apartment.

3. The Jocks in High School Musical 3 Spend an Uncomfortable Amount of Time Giggling and Chasing Each other.

At one point, Chad and Troy steal a couple of younger Baller's clothes and mince away, giggling with bacchanal glee while the half-naked boys chase them. Later, they giggle and chase each other while singing in a junkyard, where they then turn into little boys and commence giggling and chasing each other some more. It is of course all in the spirit of innocent playground fun, presuming of course that said playground is located at Malcolm McDowell's house, circa 1979*.

4. Zac Efron is Becoming a Handsome Young Woman.

That is, of course, a mean-spirited, spiteful comment better suited for a bitchy, washed up VH1 comedian than a serious film critic but, seriously, there are moments in this film where is a dead ringer for Alien-era Sigourney Weaver.

5. The Songs in High School Musical 3 are Literally Forgettable.

The songs in the first movie were bad, but they lodged themselves in your mind like a harpoon to fester there, apparently, forever. To this day, I can't hear the words "status quo" without that hellish chorus erupting my head and I saw the first movie well over a year ago. It has been less than five days since I watched High School Musical 3 and, even looking at list of song titles, I will be damned if I remember a single tune. This illustrates a larger issue with HSM3. With this first theatrical outing, I was expecting them to up their game a bit, but everything from the production design to the choreography to the music feels even less inspired than the extremely uninspired Disney Channel prequels. Even the story is essentially a less-interesting version of the already-not-terribly-interesting first movie's. The play-within-a-movie that they mount at the climax, in a fucking monument to vanity and lack of imagination, is actually a play about themselves and their High School experiences and just recycles songs and entire dance numbers from the first and third movies.

6. Corbin Bleu is Getting Too Old For This Shit.

Unlike his B-Ball chum Zac, Corbin (sigh) Bleu is blossoming into something approaching manliness. He kind of towers over the others, has visible five o'clock shadow and, by High School Musical standards looks sort of vaguely threatening. His hair, however, still looks ridiculous on Jaden Smith and that kid from The Boondocks, let alone a twenty year old.

7. The Inevitable High School Musical 4 Shows No Sign of Being Any Better.

HSM3 is all about Senior year. As such, it ends with the characters going off to college. Disney likes nothing better than beating a horse to death, dressing its corpse in a pretty dress and then beating it some more. As they have done this will even their most respected properties, the chances of them not (metaphor shift in 3,2,1...) milking this fattest of cash cows well into the next decade is pretty much a statistical impossibility. So, in addition to flat out saying that Ashley Tisdale's Sharpay will be skanking around the next installment, they have introduced a few new characters who run the gamut from less-amusing-version-of-existing-characters (Jemma McKenzie Brown as Tiara Gold) to completely unremarkable (the one small kid who gets his pants stolen) to Oh-Holy-God-Shoot-Me-In-The-Face-Loathsome (Matt Prokop as Jimmie Zara).

Final Words

Basically, it's High School Musical with less of everything that worked the first time and more of everything that didn't, except for the stuff that is pretty much exactly the same. Which is a lot of it.

Compared to Other High School Musicals: C
Compared to Other Movies: Held Back A Year

* I have no idea if Malcolm McDowell was or is actually any kind of pervert but for some reason that statement just feels right.