Movie Review - High School Musical 3

High School Musical 3

Rated G for 'having nothing offensive in it'; 112 Minute Running Time

Starring Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, and many more!

First off, I have a daughter and have watched both of the made for TV Disney Channel Original Movies that came before this 3rd and 'supposedly' final High School Musical big screen extravaganza. Matter of fact, I enjoyed these first two shows enough to buy them on DVD. I can't help but enjoy the amazingly squeaky clean musicals and their catchy pop songs. So, the fact that a new High School Musical was being prepped for theatres got me a bit excited and I rushed out to watch it this weekend. Daughter got to come with as she was excited as well.

Let's just say, they didn't disappoint. It was a well made flick that had everything I wanted out of a High School Musical flick. It had catchy pop songs, amazing choreography, wonderful set pieces with vibrant, eye-popping visuals, and a short easy plot. It's not hard to like these flicks as the director and choreographer Kenny Ortega does everything possible to appeal to your senses. Something he succeeds with quite often throughout the relatively short running time of 112 minutes.

I found myself to be sad that the flick ended. All the new singing and dancing and expanded budget made this a great experience at the theatre. Matter of fact, my daughter sat through it very well when normally she prefers to play in the lobby during most other flicks. Another testament to the all ages, family friendly stuff this flick has in abundance. I applaud Disney for making such a pop culture phenomenon without sex and violence. This weekend's box office shows that G rated family movies other than animated flicks can pull in ticket sales and I hope they make more stuff like this.

You can feel that Disney threw more money at the making of this flick, but they did it modestly. Disney budgeted this flick at $13 million and after this weekend, they have already banked $40 million. I think we'd all be better off if studio's could take a lesson from this and learn how to make entertaining flicks with lower budgets. Transformers did it a year or so ago by coming in with a low budget and becoming one of the biggest grossing flicks of the year. It seems like Hollywood could do it with a little bit of cutbacks on frivolous spending. Anyways, I'm thrilled they are making money on this flick and even more thrilled that they are doing it on a G rated family film.

Back to the plot for a second, High School Musical is and will always be about the kids making a musical. This time, they went full bore on the musical, by actually making it about what they are doing so it gives the audience the ability to really imagine that the kids are singing the songs on a stage rather than just in random spots. The cinematography really took advantage of this by blending real world setting with stage settings and creating fantastic effects. I was quite enthralled. The rest of the story is all about the Senior Year, so we basically revolve the plot around all the kids going to prom, graduating, and the eventual leaving each other to go separate ways in college. It's a simple plot and one we've seen a million times before, but when you add the inventive singing and dancing, it's a whole new flick that bursts off the screen.

I really enjoyed this flick. Everything about it is quite fun to watch and although there are tons of people out there that automatically are negative about it, they probably haven't even watched it or opened up their minds to actually enjoying it. Just like anything - if you go to watch it with your mind set, you'll find anything and everything to not like about it and complain about it, but if you go to have a good time, I'm sure you'll like it.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year is playing at Cinema 3 in McCook. Check out www.fridleytheatres.com for more information and showtimes.