Movie Review Monday

It's the moment you have been waiting for! My review of High School Musical 3: Senior Year. Without further ado, here it is...

High School Musical 3: Senior Year - The third (and not sure if it is the final due to something I read) installment of the High School Musical phenomenon comes Senior Year. Full of music and dancing, almost non stop, tear jerking moments, lots of laugh and even a scream or two. The girls went WILD for Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and they clapped after a number of musical breakouts. The premise for the 3rd HSM movie was the characters are in their final year at East High. They have to make decisions about college and have TONS going on. Not sure if they can pull off an end of the year musical, Darbus challenges them to play out their senior year, ON STAGE! From falling in love, playing basketball, and going to the senior prom... they do it all. The soundtrack for this will be amazing. There wasn't a dull moment at all in the movie. In my opinion it was not as good as the first two but then again, it didn't have to be. The kids (and lots of moms too) were already hooked and likely would have paid with an actual body part if they had to... maybe a kidney, or a piece of the liver. It has become that much of a passion for some. Like I said previously, there was tons of music. Way more than the first two, I think. The acting... very over the top. In the first two they seemed more relaxed, more real. This time you could tell they were trying hard because they were now big time Hollywood stars. We all still loved it and we would go see it again if we could. I will definitely be buying this one (no way I could get away without getting it) when it finally comes out. 4.75 stars on a 5pt scale... I would have given it 5 stars but the acting and way more songs than the last two made me mark it down just a touch.

I promise the kids will love it and it will be well worth it just to put that smile on their faces. We took the three oldest and for the most part they sat their the whole time. My 4yr old kept saying, "Look Lexi! It's Zac Efron. Jacob, it's Gabriella." It was so cute. Then she kept going back and forth between me and Lexi and it started to get annoying. Jacob started throwing a fit half way through the movie because he wanted to sit next to Lexi but so did Kadie. John only had to make two trips to the potty... once for Jacob, once for the girls. That has GOT to be some kind of record and definitely an indicator that Jacob liked the movie since he wasn't asking to leave or to go to the bathroom twelve times.

And because I'm sure you were wondering (because I know I was)...

From MTV New UK

High School Musical 3: Senior Year has gone straight to number one in the US Box Office taking a massive $42 Million (£27 M) in just three days.

This is the first big screen film in the HSM series and it’s set a record as Disney’s biggest opening for a musical- beating Mamma Mia- which came out earler in ’08.

In a strong weekend for US cinemas the less-family friendly Saw V sold over $30 million of tickets.

High School Musical 3- which stars Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron- also topped movie charts in 19 other countries including the UK- where it has taken £8.5 Million ($13 Million) so far.

From Los Angeles Times

As the film ends, some of the kids are heading off to Juilliard, Berkeley, Yale, Stanford and the University of Arizona, but never fear, as there are some new, younger characters introduced in the story to keep the next film (should there be one) with some grounding at good old East High. For those scoring at home, the third entry in the "High School Musical" series is better than the second but doesn't quite sustain the unvarnished, giddy highs of the first.