Surviving High School Musical 3

My 9 yr-old daughter Vicky has been waiting for ages for this movie to be released, whilst I’ve been dreading it since! But then the big day has arrived and this afternoon (actually yesterday afternoon as it is now passed midnight!) I had to take her to the cinema together with a couple of her friends and HSM fans.

For them it was a magical time, for me it was a very very long time, although I have to admit it was not so bad as I thought. I have only seen some sporadic scenes from the previous two dvds passing through Vicky’s room. She instead knows every song, every word and every move…

I “armed” myself with a huge portion of popcorn and a giant coffee cup hoping that the 111 minutes would pass without too many traumas. Ie. popcorn and drinks poured all over the seats and the floor, continuous visits to the toilet, giggling and talking loud disturbing the other cinema guests, etc. etc. I was lucky instead, the girls behaved very well glued as they were to the big screen. But my coffee was finished before the advertising and trailers were over and every time I attempted to fall asleep a new song popped up to shock my sleepy brain.

So, I had to put up with it and watch the film. The plot is very simple. Imagine all the high school stereotypes you know and put them together in one big musical, and voilà, you get "High School Musical 3 – Senior Year." There's the jock, the beauty queen, the smart and pretty girl-next-door, the nerd, the rebel, all singing and dancing for the preadolescence crowd generation. A lot of music and a lot of dancing. Admittedly the music is catchy and the dance sequences are well choreographed. The acting in between is irritating and very cheesy, but fortunately there is not much of it as there is not much plot.

Anyway, it was worth the effort. The girls loved every minute of it and we got home happily without a single tantrum or falling out. And my dreaded migraine did not even come back! I owed Vicky anyway. She came twice with me to see “Mamma Mia!”, but who would ever dare to compare that cheesy 21-yr-old Zac Efron (main character in HSM3) with the absolute gorgeous Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth? Well, maybe a 9-yr-old lady would….