Are you skeptical of Vanessa Hudgens's ability to play "street-smart" in Sucker Punch this weekend? You are? Settle down and breathe, because she already played "book-smart" and "Stanford-bound" in High School Musical 3: Senior Year. I anticipate your complaints: "Yes, Movieline, this is a bad movie," you caw (while secretly groping the "W" on your self-made Wildcats letter jacket), "but is it lovable?" I contend that it is! And not just because Zac Efron is the only person in history to look more like a Fisher Price Little Person as he ages. Let's dribble the basketball of intellect between our legs and figure it out.
Hard to believe now, but there was a time in American history when people believed Glee would be a sad rip-off of High School Musical. I won't exhume that argument, since only a few of HSM's elements remain in place (the song and dance, the varsity/drama club crossover, the outrageous diva, the pun-named blondes), but I'll credit High School Musical for one achievement that eludes Ryan Murphy: tonal uniformity. HSM is a dreamland of jumpy haircuts, three-pointers, and danceable emotions. It is uncool. It doesn't even aim for cool. "Cool" moved off the Disney Channel before I was born. High School Musical is The Lawrence Welk Show as re-imagined by Bop! magazine and hand-jive choreographers. It's pep for preps!
Zac Efron is bac-k- as Albuquerque's East High basketball star Troy Bolton, who has the biceps of an average Herb Ritts muse. He wins the school's championship game in the first 10 minutes of the movie, and we can all appreciate director Kenny Ortega fast-tracking this obligatory storyline. Afterward, Troy and his girlfriend Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) discuss how they never want high school to end, especially since it means they'll be going to different colleges. Where will they ever find like-minded connoisseurs of tongueless kisses? Sigh. A Strindbergian bleakness descends upon the couple. Thinking quickly, Gabriella decides to perk Troy up with a waltz lesson. She is not programmed to be joking about this.
Vanessa Hudgens has always been an odd choice for this role. She's adorable, but her stilted shrugs and presentational acting seem wimpy compared to Rebecca Black's. Plus, she's supposed to seem like a Stanford prospect, which is troubling for someone who seems only to be studying her co-star's stunning eyelashes. And by the way: Her co-star? Is an undeniable star. God. How to describe the mystical and enchanted moonbeam that is Efron? How? How? You try! No, wait, let me try. Um: He's a burning hunk of man who also looks like 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal.
That was easier than expected. Onward.
Chad and Taylor (Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman) are the couples' best friends, so you can imagine how emotionally absent and unnecessary they are. Chad played more a significant role in the previous two films, so the producers throw him a bone with this hi-larious number. The subject of "Boys are Back"? Manliness. You guessed it: It's an *NSYNC rip with five coolers more of homoerotic charm. Fever dreams do come true!
The real star of the movie is Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale), the bossy Lucy Van Pelt senior who's set to topline East High's spring musical and compete for a scholarship to Juilliard. That's how Juilliard works! They visit your high school, watch you shake your ass to pop singles, and offer you five-figure deals. That's how Van Cliburn got started.
Ashley Tisdale is like Hayley Duff with Angelica Pickles's dialogue, but she's so much less/more than that (depending on who you are and if I respect your soul). She spends this movie snitching to Troy about Vanessa's bridled Stanford ambitions, sparring with a British girl who wants her part in the show, and cavorting onstage with more gusto than Hilary Duff in at least Material Girls. She's the campiest camper here, which is no surprise because in real life, Ashley Tisdale covers gay dance ballads like Cathy Dennis's "Too Many Walls." GLAAD Committee, time to hand over the bouquet of kudos. I'd like to think the diehards who made HSM3 the highest-grossing musical opening in movie history attended for Ms. Tisdale's showmanship.
Please keep listening to "Too Many Walls" while you scan over this picture of Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel). He's a senior who choreographs East High's musical numbers. I want you to look into his eyes when Ashley coos, "Deep in my heart / I know my strength is within." He has got a lot within him, as I'm sure you've noticed. I challenge Glee's Kurt Hummel to outclass this vest situation. In fact, his hair situation is blonder and cooler than Chord Overstreet's. Actually, Glee, line up your whole cast in a tag-team match against Ryan Evans, and we'll see if anyone besides Ryan and maybe Naya Rivera are left standing at the end.
I told you this movie was fun. Bizarrely, nearer to the end of this 120-minute confection, Hudgens wins a solo swing at the movie's best song. "Walk Away" is a clever hybrid of that Kelly Clarkson song "Walk Away" and Ace of Base's "Don't Turn Around," which contains the famous line, "walk away."
Of course, the movie's ending is schmaltzy and predictable, but you know? High school is almost never treated as an un-ironically, un-cynically good time, as it is here. I liked high school. In movies, it's always a torrid batch of melodramas topped off with popularity contests and fights. Fact is, high school is (or can be) fun, and for most people it's at least this dorky. Conversely, High School Musical 3 avoids the onus of representing real teenagers, which makes the festivities more escapist and cute if you want them to be.
But who would want to escape the pleasures of a Zac Efron hand-jive (if you will!), which commences at 2:30 in the following clip? Even if all four years of high school were hell for you, it's probably healthier to re-categorize them as a single night to remember, and High School Musical 3: Senior Year finds a way to do just that. Don your ill-fitting suit and grind along!