High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Brace yourself for a full-on, foot-stomping Zac attack.
Brace yourself for a full-on, foot-stomping Zac attack.
The ultra-perky Disney Channel phenomenon takes a bow on the big screen for the first time, inducing the same sort of high-pitched hysteria in young fans as the glory days of Westlife and Take That.
Boyishly cute leading man Efron is blatantly the star attraction of this feel good fantasy.
Director Kenny Ortega opens with a lingering close-up of the 21-year-old shaking his sleek, sweat-drenched locks, before launching into one of the high-energy song and dance numbers, which have become the series' trademark.
When Efron belts out his solo 'Scream', girls in the audiences oblige at ear-splitting volume.
Ortega, who doubles as choreographer, pulls out all the stops to make the most of the widescreen format, delivering dazzling set pieces which reach a crescendo in Riley's Salvage Yard, where Troy (Efron) and best buddy Chad (Corbin Bleu) duet on 'The Boys Are Back' over a moving assault course of tyres and scrap metal cars.
Screenwriter Peter Barsocchini glues these colour-saturated spectaculars together with minimum plot and character development, essentially replaying romances and rivalries from earlier instalments in the series.
Dialogue is loaded with so much schmaltz, you'll probably require urgent dental attention by the rip-roaring finale.
High School Musical 3: Senior Year bids a tearful farewell to most of the actors who have made the series a toe-tapping success, uniting Troy, Chad, Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), Taylor (Monique Coleman) and the attention-seeking twins Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) for one final performance under the direction of ebullient drama teacher Ms Darbus (Alyson Reed).
'This is our last chance to do something together, something really fun,' Gabriella reminds everyone helpfully.
As usual, Sharpay tries to steal the limelight, plotting with her brother to woo talented composer Kelsi Nielson (Olesya Rulin), who always writes the best songs for Troy and Gabriella.
High School Musical 3: Senior Year continues to peddle a rose-tinted view of adolescence: the only drug you'll see is caffeine and the furthest these lusty, hormone-addled teens stray is holding hands in the moonlight.
Efron and Hudgens embrace dreamily in a tree house to the strains of 'Right Here, Right Now' and waltz on a rooftop during a rainstorm for 'Can I Have This Dance'.
When Gabriella's dream to attend Stamford jeopardizes a final hurrah at the prom, Troy inevitably shows his sensitive side, cooing, 'My prom is wherever you are.
If I'm going to have a last dance, it's going to be with you.' Tisdale provides comic relief as the diva, who takes one look at Ryan's Chicago-esque choreography and snipes, 'He's doing some kind of yoga-Fosse thing!' A toe-tapping remix of 'We're All In This Together' brings the curtain down, quite literally, on the love-in, sending fans out on the sugar high of a final rendition of the High School Musical theme tune.
Release Date: Wednesday 22 October 2008
Certificate: U
Runtime: 111mins
