High School Musical 3: Senior Year
- Year:2008
- Rating:G
- Director:Kenny Ortega
- Cast:Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Zac Efron, Lucas Grabeel, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale
- Release Date:December 04, 2008
- Distributor:Walt Disney
- Running time:111 minutes
- Film Worth:$12.50
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
“…a truly winning reprise.”
After achieving unprecedented global saturation via the small screen, it was inevitable that the High School Musical franchise would transfer its wholesome charms to the megaplex. Thankfully the poignant, funny and unashamedly feel-good titular senior year more than proves its worth as big screen entertainment, hitting its straps big time in the final quarter and ultimately scoring a grandstand, slam-down finish for the series.
Wisely returning to the corridors of East Side High (after the only sporadically engaging second instalment, which whisked the characters away to a summer getaway), High School Musical 3: Senior Year uses the familiar sets and scenarios of the first TV movie to winning effect. Sharpay Evans (the hilariously bitchy Ashley Tisdale) is once again attempting to undermine the union of Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), the panting jock who just wants to croon, and his saccharine-sweet girlfriend Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens). As the characters contemplate the disintegration of their high school cliques, and the impending pressures of college, they channel their fears and hopes into a spring musical.
A more thick-set and baritone Zac Efron is a knockout here, looking equally at home in a basketball singlet as in a summer shirt waltzing amidst roof-top flower pots. Once again - as throughout the first two instalments - ballads prove to be an Achilles heel, with director Kenny Ortega seeming less sure-handed when the characters reveal their interior monologues in slow motion. When Ortega jacks up the pace to eleven, the film takes off into the stratosphere - as during the jaw-dropping boys-own duet "The Boys Are Back". Trumping the first sequel, and approaching the quality of the original, High School Musical 3: Senior Year is a truly winning reprise.
