Review of High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008) by Josh G — 15 Dec 2010

It's hard to put into words what makes High School Musical 3 the best in the soon-to-be-forgotten series. Yes, the songs and dances are done with much more grace, but part of that could be attributed to the fact that this was the first in the series to erupt onto the big-screen, in theaters. Maybe it's the fact that this is the first movie where there is something kind of real at stake.

It's senior year, and as so often happens when the senior year of high school comes around, the kids at East High are suddenly realizing that they may not see each other again. That, and the fact that they might not want exactly what they had been planning for their entire lives. I'm the type of guy who sees dark dread in Step Up 2, so maybe you can understand why this flimsy story seems deep and emotional to me. Troy (Efron) and Gabriella (Hudgens) have to face the fact that their relationship may be doomed - she has plans to attend a school that is 1,053 miles away from their hometown. "We're about to graduate," Troy sternly tells a depressed Gabriella, "That is happening." That sort of mature handling of a situation is unusual for this series.

Perhaps the biggest indicator of this film's maturity in comparison to the previous installments is the character of Ms. Darbus, played by Alyson Reed. Where she has in the past been claw-your-own-eyes-out annoying, played as a brutally detestable character, here she... seems almost human. She has a sweet heart-to-heart with Troy, and yes I'm aware of how many hyphenated phrases I've been writing. Everybody seems different, almost. I guess Sharpay's almost the same character as before, perpetually self-obsessed and cartoonish. But look at Gabriella, who began the series as a disaffected kid genius: now she is an unsure teenager, just like the rest of her classmates. Is it the fact that isn't moving around anymore which caused this change in her? How about Chad, mostly absent this time around: when he does appear, he's hurt by his best friend's stronger affections for a girl. They tried this before, in part two, but it wasn't done half as well. And then there's Ryan, Sharpay's brother, who has been the character that has grown the most continuously over the series and who is most certainly my favorite. Where he used to hide under his sister's brash personality, he has come into his own entirely. When she bosses him around in this film, he hardly pays her any mind. If it weren't for the fact that he, like all the others, are doing the same old song-and-dance, he might stand a chance of becoming a different sort of character entirely.

If the series is taking some minor steps forward with one leg, however, it's just running in place with the other. The songs, although sometimes catchy, are almost entirely forgotten by the time the film is over. There are some pretty great moments throughout, such as when Troy has an angry solo song in a twisting hallway that totally outdoes his angry golf course song from HSM II, but a lot of it seems to be just going through the motions. A friend of mine said that he got the feeling that the actors were ready to be doing something else when he was watching this movie. I didn't really get that, but the filmmakers do seem to be at a loss for where they could take the plot next. Aside from the tiny bit of character growth that I mentioned, the characters still seem to fit too easily into the roles they were assigned to begin with, and the movie just feels like it's trying to get them all to sing - whatever it may take.

Most grating of all, however, is the way that everything is solved much too easily. At one point, Gabriella visits her college on the other side of the country and Troy drives his beaten-up truck to see her in order to discuss the status of their relationship. I thought it certainly had to be a dream sequence or something... there's no way he could drive 1,053 miles overnight. But apparently he did. The fact that this is unbelievable is enough for me to scoff at it, but the fact that the film is okay with allowing that all in the name of wrapping things up, that's what's most disheartening. Remember before when I mentioned Chad's dismay at losing his best friend? Ain't nothing a smile and a joke won't immediately fix. And how about the fact that Troy is torn between basketball and theater? Sounds like an impossible fix, doesn't it? Well, I'll let you watch the movie to figure out how that conundrum gets resolved.

What I'm saying is that, you know, technically High School Musical 3 is the best of the bunch. And on a story level, it's the most advanced of the series as well. But that's not saying much, really, because the movies don't advance much to begin with. It's great for what it is, I guess, and maybe I'm asking too much... but I feel like if this movie stuck to its guns and took itself a lot more seriously, then the finale could have been something more than just another High School Musical movie. As it stands, it's still a weak entry in a flat trilogy that was always destined to be completely forgotten. What a shame.