After the big success of “High School Musical” and “High School Musical 2“, which many people call the new Grease phenomenon, Disney didn’t wait long to take this popular series to the big screen in High School Musical 3: Senior Year. The prequel to “Senior Year“, High School Musical 2 was watched by 17.2 millions viewers, making it the most watched cable telecast of all time. Opening the doors for a promising big screen success that will set new records for a musical at the box office .
The film begins very similar to its predecessor with an energetic and extraordinary choreography, performed by the majority of the cast. Setting up the tone for one hour and forty minutes of music and dance, but it is when the popular Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) appears that the story begins.
In general, the story is simple, but effective for its target audience. The last year of high school in which the friends and non friends of East Senior High School will have to decide what‘s next in their lives. Once again the Wild Cats have to prepare a new show, but this time is the last show of their High School life. , which becomes like before, a combination of contagious music and good choreography that will pay big dividends for this movie. The music is as good as the last two almost with the same type of cuts.
Just like in previous installments of the franchise, there is not much room to think that the success for this movie can be attributed to Zac Efron, who is basically the heart of the movie. It is not to take anything away from the rest of the cast, but taking into consideration the popularity he gained from the first 2 movies. He definitely developed a strong fan base among teen girls.
One point that has to be mentioned was the fact that Kenny Ortega and Peter Barsocchini just decided to not deviate from the formula created in the first 2 films. “If is not broken don’t fix it” and that’s why probably the film will be a big winner at the box office this fall.
Definitely Ortega left the door open for future generations of High School Musicals, by introducing a couple of new sophomores funny characters that will have teens talking about.
The big screen gave Kenny Ortega more room to present outstanding choreographies that can only be appreciated in a movie theater and the result was a couple of energetic and innovative moves that have to be mentioned. The first one is the choreography for the song “A Night To Remember”, which is part of a rehearsal for the final show, performed by the entire cast. However the performance of the song “The Boys Are Back” where Ortega just get lose and creates the most energetic and contagious dances is really the most outstanding choreography of the series performed by Troy (Zac Efron) and Chad (Corbin Bleu).
Overall the film meets its goal. Continuing with the success of the franchise and setting a strong ground for future installments either on TV or in the big screen. What’s next for the big stars of this mega series? Both Zac Efron and Kenny Ortega will reunite in the remake of the musical classic Footloose in 2010.
Review By The Critic
