Yesterday one of my wife's theater kids hosted a High School Musical 2 premiere party. No boys were allowed, but apparently I don't count: I was the only guy there other than the hostess's baby brother (her father was at work). Otherwise it was 9- and 10-year-olds, with two Little Caesars, i.e. one slice per person.
I suppose even High School Musical 2 should get spoiler space. (It was very good at being what it was. It didn't blow me away like the original (which I'd expected to hate) but I can think of quite a few musicals that aren't nearly as good.)
OMFG: Vanessa Anne Hudgens was in Thirteen (not quite as mind-blowing as if it were Kids -- I confuse those two films sometimes -- but still!). I pity the misguided parent who noticed this but didn't realize what Thirteen was about and rented it for... I suppose this isn't quite Vampire Chicks With Chainsaws, though.
You know you're not quite an adult yet when going your own way entails stepping into the front passenger seat of a mini-van.
Contrary to what I'd assumed, Corbin Bleu is not the name of the lead actor (Troy is played by Zac Efron, who doesn't seem to have [much of] a solo career) but rather his friend with the weird hair.
"Wildcats are a team" ...of ungrateful pricks who are awfully quick to turn on the guy who singlehandedly got them country club jobs in the first place. (This isn't quite spelled out but it seems that when Troy gets the job offer he's crazy enough to ask for jobs for his friends and Fulton is crazy enough to grant that request.)
Where is the love for the piano player? No seriously, literally where? Both HSM installments end with a big dance scene with people paired off, obviously Troy & Gabrielle front & center. At the end of the sequel, both Sharpay and Kelsi are with boys that I don't remember seeing at any earlier point in the movie. Are these just random spur-of-the-moment hookups? For all we know Kelsi could have tons of back-story, but I don't think Sharpay had time to romance a guy while she was so busy scheming after Troy.
Olesya Rulin was born in Moscow. She's 21 years old already (c.f. 20 in October, 19 in December, 22!, 23 in November!!, and "just" 18) and according to IMDB "She's a trained ballet dance and model." Even before knowing anything about her (not even her name) I thought she was prettier than Sharpay and on par with Gabrielle.
(Mixed emotions: Vanessa Anne Hudgens has an incredibly expressive face but how much of that is makeup?)
Everyone is well aware that Troy practicing with those college guys was almost certainly some sort of NCAA violation, right? And if he's that good to begin with, wouldn't he already know it in the form of recruiters making initial contact? Why limit his horizons to the team in his home town?
Would Troy and Gabrielle have any conversations not actually captured in the film sequence? If they don't then their communication is terrible enough that breaking up was the right thing to do; but if they do, wouldn't Troy just tell her what's going on in his life (none of which he should feel the least bit embarrassed about: he's like the antithesis of an Ayn Rand hero)?
And what led her to change her mind about him? She dumps him but then decides "oh I want you back" (and somehow already have the same necklace I returned to you back around my neck) and the one song makes everything right?
In the interstitial sequences where we see the actors lounging around the pool and self-promoting, Kenny Ortega (director) tells the cast "thank you for helping me make a great movie." What a megalomaniac! I don't think there's a single member of High School Musical's core audience who swoons over Kenny Ortega. A normal human being, i.e. one not deluded by years in Hollywood, would've said "thank you for MAKING a great movie."
Posted by Matt Bruce at August 18, 2007 11:45 AMLooking at Corbin Bleu's photo at IMDB, the first thing I thought of was "Justin Guarini for a new generation".