High School Musical

The Disney Channel original 2006 movie, High School Musical was a cult sensation for the company. At the time of its release, people were going mad over this flick, even though it never made it to theatres and it eventually spawned three sequels as well as an upcoming Netflix series, it had a lot of songs that parents would hear to no end, tween actors that people would swoon over, and it made people super bummed out when they realized high school was nothing like this. While not a critical success with many finding it ”overly sentimental”, it did much better with audiences and earned itself a cult following over the years, with many people nowadays still debating whether or not it was actually a good flick or if their adolescent minds had blocked out something that was truly stupid and not worth the hype. But against all odds surprisingly, the movie, for what it’s trying to get across, actually does it with enough intelligence and effort to make it work quite well as a stand-alone flick. Set in East High School,  the movie follows two teenagers, basketball captain and East High sensation Troy Bolton (played by Zac Efron) and recently-arriving academically gifted Gabriella (played by Vanessa Hudgens). They both exist on opposite sides of the high school status quo, but find themselves bonded over one thing, their singing talents which they never knew they had. Feeling like they have to hide it from their social groups as singing isn’t expected from people within these spaces, they both decide to enter the planned musical event coming later in the year, going up against the glamorous Sharpay (played by Ashley Tisdale) and her brother Ryan (played by Lucas Grabeel). After the two manage to get call-backs, the rest of the school starts to crumble, with several people questioning why they have to be restricted to only being good at one thing. With both of them sharing scheduled events on the day that involve their other passions, as well as peer pressure from their friends to get them to focus on them instead, the two lovers have to find a way to get onstage so they can finally show off their hidden talents without needing to be ashamed of them. By all accounts, this should’ve been an instant failure, with the mere idea of Disney trying to capture a high school experiencing just sounding like a recipe for cringe-worthy material and forcibly inserted cliches and roles,  but the people working behind this film clearly knew what to keep focus on and managed to pull out something that was entertaining, surprisingly well constructed in places in regards to the tone, and had enough energy and care that it wouldn’t turn out a dramatic failure.

The set-up isn’t the most invigorating or freshest material to work with, if anything it is essentially Grease done by the Disney channel (which even then wasn’t the most authentic portrayal of high school to begin with). Everything from the writing, the characters and their performances, the visuals, even the style is similar with how cheesy and over-the-top it is, you could start to see where this could come across as disingenuous and even a little manipulative. But with that said, this dramatic and even flamboyant manner of presentation actually works in its favour in bringing this lively personality to the film, as much like Grease, it feels like its own time-capsule of a time period, beautifully aging the movie while also dating it at the same time. Nothing about the movie is realistic, from the way the people act, the way the school looks, the things that they get away with, it’s never meant to feel like a real school, so there’s never a feeling that Disney is trying to be ‘cool’ and appeal to an older demographic by ”being on the same level as them”. Doing quite the opposite, the film actually does a pretty good job at balancing its use of clichés with its breaking of clichés. The obvious ones are apparent like some of the character archetypes, the needless conflict between the romantic couple spurred from a misunderstanding, and the overly complicated, even illegal, way of getting everyone into the right spot for the climax, but certain aspects are refreshing to see different, like a high school story about two popular good-looking kids wanting to do something that is seen as unpopular, or the fact that the two spoiled rich bullies wanting to hog the attention ACTUALLY have real talent and aren’t frauds, touches like that make it a bit more interesting than other examples of its type. Overall, the movie has this likeable dorky element to it that feels more sincere than other attempts at high school environments (even ones from within Disney’s library) and its through this lens that it feels the most honest and even relatable, as it embraces its odd sense of humor and tone instead of pretending that its ”hip” and ”with it”. The director for this movie, Kenny Ortega, worked on several musical properties before this movie as a choreographer on films like Xanadu and Dirty Dancing, and directed films like Newsies and Hocus Pocus, so he knows how to work within this environment, how to adopt it to work for a new audience, and how to construct a song sequence. Its well paced, its not too long and doesn’t wear itself out, and the script by Peter Barsocchini may not be downright perfect, but the self-awareness as well as the manner of embracing the cheesiness allows things to be quite likeable throughout a majority of the movie.

While some of the characters are pretty sub-par and are largely just high school stereotypes, they have some good actors portraying them and they know to make fun of some of these stereotypes, which makes things a lot less annoying. While the passion behind the camera and the nice structure of the script and direction are definitely helpful, this movie could’ve still easily flopped if the actors didn’t work in this environment and tone, but they genuinely do and are having fun with it, which in turn allows the audience to get lost in it as well. The main leads work off each other pretty well, all the side characters like Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Olesya Rulin and Chris Warren Jr. have that style of Disney Channel acting which is slightly over-the-top but likeably so, Sharpay and her brother are pretty funny (even if it feels weird how much they act like a couple and not like brother and sister), the drama teacher played by Alyson Reed is a lot of fun, acting so differently from how most drama teachers in movies act (very cynically and high-strung), it’s another fresh approach to an original idea. Even though the stakes in the movie aren’t very high and its cheesy tone means that the dramatic moments always feel a little flat, the acting is solid enough that, when they do show up, they don’t fail as badly as they could’ve and it never comes across as too hoaky, with exception to the coach played by Bart Johnson, who feels a bit too goofy and too much like a one-note cartoon even for this movie. All of them sing pretty well even if most of it is digitally enhanced and Zac Efron’s dub is laughably obvious. However, a problem occurs during the movie’s halfway point, where the side characters do something that is way too mean spirited and feels truly hurtful and manipulative in regards to how they treat the leads. Its really selfish and way too harsh for the quick resolution that’s given and the fact that the movie just expects the audience to forgive them so quickly without so much as a true apology is a bit of an issue.

When your title has the word ‘musical’ on it, the music has to be a good selling point, and since it sold albums everywhere (reaching high in the U.S. Billboard 200, with its lead single, “Breaking Free”, reaching number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100) it clearly hit people in the right places. Ironically, the entire reason this movie came into existence was after the popularity of the musical episodes for Disney Channel shows like Even Stevens and That’s So Raven, so the movie owes a lot to their success. The singing, as already mentioned, may sound very altered and a little fake, but the movie does to its credit, use the music as a way to move their story forward and not just as a tool for Disney to sell some of their pop stars and a soundtrack (that waited for Camp Rock to do that). Some of the songs are actually quite good, not just from a hummable factor, but just in the realms of the film in general; Breaking Free is a nice climatic number, Get Your Head in the Game has a great beat to it, We’re All in this Together is great to move too, anything with Sharpay and Ryan sound fun and upbeat, and all the songs are also home to some great flashy dance moves with people who really get into the action. Another testament to the amount of effort put into this movie is how good some of the choreography on many of these numbers are, especially for a Disney Channel original. It never feels like anyone is slacking off or not trying, everyone is getting into every moment their on-screen. There’s a wonderful done number during the halfway mark in a cafeteria; the high energy, the timing with the music, the lyrics, the setting, it’s pretty impressive to watch. The faster songs are bouncy and have good instrumentals, and the slower songs are nicely soft and fit the appropriate mood. Some of the cinematography by Gordon Lonsdale does have some weird shots, mainly some cramped close-ups and a few awkward zooms, but that mainly comes from its Disney Channel roots. Even  the location for the film is pretty memorable, as this school is likeably colorful, expansive and extreme enough to feel like a film creation, but grounds its roots just enough to feel like a believable replication (at least for this bizarre of a world).

For something that should have been dead on arrival, High School Musical is very alive and full of enough spirit and structure to make it a watchable feature from the smaller level of Disney’s work. The comparison to Grease is still strong; it isn’t the most complex, smartest, or even best musical, but there’s something charmingly simplistic about how it delivers its narrative and its awareness in how it’s doing it that it works in its own strange bubble. The music is memorable, the actors are fun to watch, the passion and energy is very strong, and the changes to an all-to-familiar formula is a surprising step for Disney to take. It does have some faults, and its laid-back nature and simplistic storytelling keeps it from being a great movie and really only exists as dumb cheesy fun, but with that said, it IS just dumb cheesy fun and its made much better because of that. High School Musical may not be a contender for the best show tunes, but it will leave a likeable melody in your head all the same.