Delayed Reaction: High School Musical 3: Senior Year

The Pitch: One more time. This time, in theaters.

How I Came Into It: High School Musical and its sequel are the pinnacle of what a Disney Channel movie can be. Its popularity was through the roof. The cast was young, pretty, and talented. It didn't have to target anyone other than the core network demographic, and anyone else that came to it was just gravy. It is really damn near impossible to take something from TV and make it work on the big screen and using the original cast is even harder (only Star Trek comes to mind as doing it successfully). After watching Neighbors again, I decided it was as good a time as any to have a "remember your roots" moment for Zach Efron and finally get around to this (I should've had a "look what she became" moment with Vanessa Hudgens and rewatched Spring Breakers, but alas, I did not).

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) It's delightfully what it is. The cast can all sing and dance. There's a good energy to it all and it doesn't overstay its welcome with the length. The fact that they got the whole cast back is either a testament to the eagerness of the cast or the air tight litigiousness of Disney (probably the latter).

Why I Wish I Hadn't: When your interpretation of high school makes Saved By the Bell look edgy, it's hard to take you seriously. That's forgivable though, because it's the nature of the series. No, the biggest thing working against this is that no matter how hard they try, this is a TV movie. As big as they try to make the numbers, it still feels bound by the small screen. I can't find anything cinematic about the whole affair. That makes for an awkward tone. And the songs aren't as catchy.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend