High School Musical – The Concert [Extreme Access Pass]
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C Film: C
Ok,
listen. This reviewer gave a fair and
open look at High School Musical and
on some level understood why a group of children and adults alike were
fascinated by a made for television musical that was moderately amusing at
best. But why does this wrath of TV
Disney continue. The original television
film (reviewed elsewhere on this site) is about a boy named Troy Bolton, the
captain of his school’s basketball team, who meets a girl on a family cruise
vacation and together they do an out of this world karaoke performance.
After the cruise Troy and the female lead, Gabriella, go their separate ways
sadly.
Amazingly,
Gabriella has just moved with her parents to a new town where she must attend a
new high school, and to the audience’s amazement, yes, it is Troy’s high
school! If you are wondering, yes this does sound oddly like the musical
Grease up to this point. From this odd occurrence a series of events
occur centering on Troy trying to balance his two worlds of his basketball team
and love for musical theater. While Troy is trying to balance talent and
love, Gabriella and Troy are also being sabotaged by two diehard musical
theater students who are not quite as good. Overall, as stated
previously, this musical is fun and meant for younger audiences but judging
from the record sales and now concert sales, adults and children alike love
this film and its musical talent.
The
concert is essentially the same exact thing as the television film, even down
to having the same cast touring. The one
change on tour, there was no Zac Efron as Troy.
Good thing for Zac, he was off making Hairspray and could not be bothered to continue making such lackluster
music…until High School Musical 2 at
least.
The tour
seemed to be fun for younger audiences at the event, but viewing this on DVD
was just more than one adult should have to take. This is a definite skip…or maybe even a skip
town to avoid.
The technical
features on this DVD are not bad, though the actual film is. The picture is presented in the same
disappointing 1.33 X 1 Full Frame format that the original film was; with the
picture being somewhat blurry at times and having a degree of light/dark issues.
For a concert DVD more care could have been taken. The sound is actually quite good presented in
Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound; but then again Disney has been pretty solid
on sound quality. The musical sequences have much clearer and crisp sound
than the actual dialogue scenes, which at times have high/low errors; just like
the film. The extras are sub par but children are sure to enjoy such
features as an interactive ‘You Direct’ feature [man if I could only do what I
really wanted], an ‘On Tour’ feature with a behind the scenes look, and a
Jordan Pruitt performs her songs featurette. Adults may find the extras
to be a bit mind numbing, but as previously stated this musical’s intentions
seem to be geared toward a younger audience.
Run for
the hills before High School Musical 3:
The Quest for More Money hits the small screen.
- Michael P Dougherty II
