High School Musical 3: Senior Year

High School Musical 3: Senior Year might be the finest achievement in cinematic history.

But if you're not female and under thirteen, it’s simply the next revolution of a cultural snowball that began as a bouncy little TV movie on the Disney Channel in 2006.
 
On-air ratings and subsequent DVD sales went through the roof, breaking records which were promptly smashed by the inevitable sequel.
 
For residents of Planet Loo-zah (i.e. grown-ups), HSM is essentially an update of Grease, only without the pregnancy and starring actors who are at least of the same generation as their characters.
 
Chief among them are pin-up prince Zac Efron as hoop-shooting hottie Troy Bolton and Vanessa Hudgens as brainy babe Gabriella Montez.
 
Together, the wholesome twosome have been making sweet music since overcoming the science/gym class divide and landing the leads in the original - tada! - High School Musical.
 
The second extravaganza took them out of class for a summer of high jinks with their best friends Chad (Corbin Bleu) and Taylor (Monique Coleman) while East High’s head mean girl, Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale), did her devious worst to split them up.
 
But as they enter their final year, college is on everyone’s mind. Tough decisions have to be made which could mean the end of Troy and Gabriella’s beautiful friendship.
 
But drama teacher Ms Darbus (Alyson Reed) insists that they end their schooldays with a bang, exhorting them to channel their nervous energies into a spring musical.
 
And with a place up for grabs at the prestigious Julliard school for the performing arts, bling monster Sharpay is determined to get it – assisted by her new English flunky Tiara Gold (Jemma McKenzie Brown).
 
If Machiavelli made shoes, they’d be a force to reckon with. But they’re too busy back-stabbing each other to cause any real trouble. And since Sharpay's sharper twin Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) is pursuing own showbiz dream, he isn’t much use to them either.
 
Despite a dash of teenage angst (Troy’s lament ‘Scream’ is as dark as HSM gets), Senior Year couldn’t be any cuter if you gave it a blow-dry, tied a pink bow on it and called it ‘Buttons’.
 
Colourful, fizzy and destined to keep the karaoke busy for a few months, the ten musical e-numbers pop between the eyes like wads of overblown bubblegum. Would that they stick in the memory in the same way…
 
Sharpay and Ryan’s Aguilera/Timberlake-style duet ‘I Want It All’ is the pick of the bunch, but where the ending demands an unforgettable showstopper, choreographer/director Kenny Ortega is forced to reprise what went before in an anti-climactic medley.
 
Whatever. Troy and Gabriella's graduation certainly means the start of something new for Mr Efron and Ms Hudgens.
 
Not that new, mind. Zac has signed up to fill Kevin Bacon’s shoes in the remake of Footloose while Ness will next be seen in Bandslam – a musical set in a high school.
 
It will come as no surprise that HSM4 is already in the pipeline. But without the original Wildcats, it’ll be all floss and no candy. Dolce without Gabbana. Hogwarts without Harry. It just won't be the same. Really it won't  :‘-(

Elliott Noble