This threequel opens with a close-up on a sweaty grimace. It’s an incongruous image, given that the facial expressions generally associated with the High School Musical films are broad grins punctuated by romantic sighs. And for a moment it seems to signal a more adventuresome, more risqué High School Musical. It is, after all, their Senior Year.
But, of course, it doesn’t. This is a film so clean it squeaks, as shiny as its leads’ teeth and about as morally complex. Troy (Zac Efron) is torn between going to college on a basketball scholarship and trying out for Juilliard ’cause, well, he's gotta dance! This dilemma is complicated by the prospect of separation from true love Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens), a supposedly Stanford-bound brain who never opens her mouth unless it will better allow her to simper.
That’s essentially the plot, once you’ve thrown in a high-school musical (the first in the franchise), along with some light stirring from drama queen Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale). But the story’s not the point — there are 14 musical numbers to be squeezed in, people.
The dancing is stunning, and while the songs aren’t as catchy as those of the first film, they’re a big step up from the second. Busby Berkeley and Bob Fosse are the references for two set-pieces, while there’s a scene in a junkyard full of lost extras from Mad Max or, more likely, BMX Bandits.
But while Efron’s still got fine comic timing, the same cannot be said of his cast-mates, many of whom lose all rhythm when faced with a joke rather than a two-step. It’s this earnestness that will forever separate this franchise from, say, Grease. Still, the kiddies will adore it.
