Keith: “What
are we watching tonight”
Adam: “High
School Musical . . . 2.”
Keith:
“Nooooo! I have to leave. I have things to do.”
In spite of
Keith’s initial reluctance because of his hatred of “High School Musical” last
week, he and the rest of us were all pleasantly surprised to see that “High
School Musical 2” is actually much worse than the first one and much funnier. This movie took everything that was strange about the first movie (the use of musical conventions, the plot, the dancing, the everything) and made it a lot stranger and more unrealistic which ended up making it a lot more tolerable to watch as a bad movie.
The movie
starts in drama class as the clock is ticking down to summer where we have a
huge opening dance number that is this movie’s rip-off of the ending song of
“Grease.” Everything seems harmonious at East High. They’re still apparently
all in this together until it’s clear that Sharpay still has an evil plan to
get Troy and win a stake-less talent show at the country club her parents
own. She is also now a full on Paris Hilton wannabe. She convinces the
management of the club to hire Troy and they end up having to hire everyone
because Troy apparently can’t work without his 20 closest friends. Troy and Gabriella,
in spite of probably having dated since the last movie, still haven’t kissed
and a lot of the movie is a long journey to that moment. The piano girl, who is
weirdly invested in their relationship or possibly in being their third, writes
them a song that they could sing in the talent show but Troy still insists that
he can’t sing in spite of presumably staring in the school musical somewhere in that span of time in between movies. Sharpie
doesn’t like any of this so she alienates her brother and creates ways to spend
more time with Troy like having him caddy for her father while they play golf
(Adam: “Couldn’t they have been playing a whiter sport like squash”). She gets
him promoted and has Daddy introduce him to a bunch of college basketball
players and all this preferential treatment turns Troy into a jerk who doesn’t
show up to dates or staff events. He has a few heart-to-hearts with his dad
where a basketball is always comically present. At one point Troy says he doesn't know who he is anymore and his dad hands him a picture of
himself in uniform that he just had in his room. While Troy is rehearsing talent show stuff with
Shurple and her taffeta-crapping skirt, Ryan is hanging with the plebeians and
having so much sexual tension with Chad that they changed clothes in between
scenes (presumably after sexing). After having a Michael Jackson dance outburst
on a golf course, Troy comes back to who he was and romantic music plays while
he apologizes to Chad even though Chad is dating Ryan. Gabriella, who had left
the club in disgust with Troy, comes back during the talent show and everyone
is in this together again. Until the next movie, I’d bet.
This movie
was nuts. It’s hard to believe that this movie probably had a much larger
budget than the first one because of the surprise success of the first. The
music was probably a bit less generic than the music in the first but in all
the wrong ways. The kiss plot was comical considering they’re in high school.
Everyone’s reluctance to admit they can dance and sing in spite of constantly
dancing and singing feels like some kind of surrealist performance art. But
overall, this movie really succeeds in how the campiness has been turned up to
eleven with no apologies given. You do you, HSM!
Quotes:
Sharpay:
“Ugh, Ryan, speak to mother!”
Ryan: “Hi,
Mommy!”
Sharpay:
*looks at lone drummer in an empty room* “Give me a beat!” *struts out*
BMN Commentary:
Troy:
“Listen.” *coyotes howling*
Adam:
“Coyotes. They’ll eat our flesh.”
Fulton: (to
Troy) “It would seem the Evans family thinks you have untapped potential.”
Adam: “And
they wanna tap that.”
Keith: He has a picture of himself in his room.
Adam: He and Sharpay have more in common than we thought.
Spoon
Rating: 7
Adam’s
Grandma’s Review: “Nice. Lot of dancing.”
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