High School Musical – Remix Edition
Picture:
C Sound: B- Extras: B Film: C+
Remember My Fair Lady? 42nd
Street? Grease? Well, High School Musical is a musical,
ultimately not being too creative, but is family friendly and typical of a Disney
Channel Production. In the past other
musicals were more so viewed in Disney animated features, though Disney has
also tried its hand at an array of Live Action features (though even that had
some animation) such as the 1964 Mary
Poppins. This film, however, is more
reminiscent of such musicals like Disney’s Newsies.
Newsies was on the big screen and
essentially flopped, but found success on VHS and the Disney Channel. High
School Musical had big hype even prior to its release on the Disney
Channel, and its sound track has had great success on the music charts.
The
film’s choreographer and director Kenny Ortega has done other films such as The Newsies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,
Dirty Dancing and Pretty in Pink,
some of which as you’ll note were not even full musicals. The film’s music was energetic, fun, and
interesting. The sound was mainly based
on today’s pop music scene with hints of classical musical elements from such
films as Grease. The premise of the film is Troy Bolton, the
captain of his school’s basketball team, meets a girl on a family cruise
vacation and together they do an out of this world (shocking lip sinking)
karaoke performance. After the cruise
Troy and the female lead Gabriella go their separate ways sadly. Amazingly, Gabriella has just moved with her
parents to a new town where she must attend a new high school, and to the
audience’s amazement, yes, it is Troy’s high school! If you are wondering, this does sound oddly
like the musical Grease up to this point.
From this odd occurrence a series of events occur centering on Troy
trying to balance his two worlds of his basketball team and love for musical
theater. While Troy is trying to balance
talent and love, Gabriella and Troy are also being sabotaged by two diehard
musical theater students who are not quite as good. Overall, this musical is fun and meant for a
younger audiences but judging from the record sales adults and children alike
love this film and its musical talent.
There are
a few problems with the film, which greatly detract from the overall
appeal. The main problem is the
simplistic nature of the film’s script that is very draining on the viewer
after the full viewing. Also there seems
to be a problem with the actors that they can’t lip sink very well, though it
is their own voices.
The
technicals of this DVD are ok. The
picture is presented in a disappointing 1.33 X 1 Full Frame format, with the
picture being somewhat blurry at times, having some color issues, and
light/dark issues. The sound is actually
quite good presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The musical sequences have much clearer and
crisp sound than the actual dialogue scenes, which at times have high/low
errors. The extras are plentiful and
children are sure to enjoy such features as a film version with sing-a-long
subtitles, Dance Along featurette, Music Videos, Interviews, and a behind the
scenes featurette. Adults may find the
extras to be a bit childish, but as previously stated this musical’s intentions
seem to be geared toward a younger audience.
In the
end, the High School Musical is
amusing to an extent for adults but children are sure to want to watch this
film again and again. This edition has
much more to offer than the original DVD release with its plethora of extras. The musical numbers are not the best but they
have their merits. This DVD would make a nice gift for any child less than 15
years of age.
- Michael P Dougherty II
