HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3
SENIOR YEAR

"Go Wildcats"

It's the senior year and for Troy (Efron), Gabriella (Hudgens), Sharpay (Tisdale), Ryan (Grabeel), Chad (Bleu) and Kelsi (Rulin) and it is the most important time of their lives. With prom, the year book, the championship game and college applications, the friends come together for one last big musical show for East High but can the pressure of knowing that everything is going to end and they are all going to go their separate ways hinder their last big show.

With the resurgence of the Musical at the box office Disney made the decision to join in on the act and release an original musical movie straight to their TV channel and the rest is history but can third film in the series keep up the musical momentum?

In the 90s the screen musical died and even Disney themselves gave up on producing the one musical stable that had keep the genre going through the decades, their 2D animated classics. In the 80s and 90s alone they defined the genre with award winning hits like 'The Lion King', 'The Little Mermaid', 'Aladdin' and 'Beauty and the Beast' but as cinemagoers passions for big screen musicals faded, so did Disney's, heralding the end of musical for a long time. The release of 'Moulin Rouge' changed all this however and the musical was a viable cinematic option.

A cavalcade of hits followed like 'Chicago', 'Hairspray', 'Rent', 'Phantom of the Opera' and 'Mamma Mia!' but these were all adaptations of stage musicals but the Disney Channel wanted to do something original. In 2006 they released 'High School Musical' into the world and every girl, and a few boys, in the western world under the age of fourteen suddenly became obsessed with singing and dancing all over again. In 2007 they followed this up with 'High School Musical 2' and the characters of Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay, Ryan, Chad, Taylor and Kelsi adorned everything from posters to pencil cases so a third movie as inevitable but this time it would head to the silver screen.

Director Kenny Ortega and writer Peter Barsocchini return along with all your favourite actors for their big screen debut. There is no denying that Zac Efron, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel, Corbin Bleu and Olesya Rulin are talented and can hold a song and really move in the many song and dance sequences but it is the subject matter of the third movie that will alienate many of their younger and non-American fans. The movies deals with the end of Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay, Ryan, Chad, Taylor and Kelsi's time at East High, so we have the Big Game, the Year Book, Prom, Graduation and most importantly the end of year musical but it is the main topic of moving away from home and going to college that most of the younger fans will struggle to understand. While the energy and the musical numbers are all here, many of which are much grander and more stage-like than what we have seen before, the songs deal with the friends not seeing each other again and what will happen next which will mean nothing to any fan under the age of sixteen.

'High School Musical 3: Senior Year' is a last goodbye for most of the cast of the phenomenally successful series and most of them will continue on to become household names. While everything has to come to an end and it was inevitable that the producers would have to deal with everything connected with that but because these are very American in nature and deal with what eighteen years olds face when leaving High School, this is not as watchable for younger fans of the films as the previous two. Older fans will rejoice however but the rest of the cinemagoers will be thinking what the fuss was all about.

Not Available

High School Musical

High School Musical 2

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2008