Maybe I'm just a weirdo. After reading all these other reviews, I'm pretty sure that I am. Or maybe it's just because I've been performing with musical theatre companies since I was about seven, so the idea of a musical isn't something novel and new for me. But every time I tried to watch this movie, and every time I heard somebody talk about how great it was, I just couldn't help but CRINGE. Not only was this another long shot for the young Disney stars to prove their "versatility", such as it is(n't), but it was yet another show about the magical clichés and drama of high school, something I'm getting absolutely sick of. I have to go to school every day and deal with petty high school drama; why would I want to come home and listen to people SING about it? Seriously. At least REAL musicals that used those themes, like Hairspray and Grease, had actual talent behind them, as well as good songs and actual FUN. Not a bunch of pretty-boy jocks smiling cheesily and singing about how much they love basketball. The whole production was so shallow...I still haven't been able to sit through the entire movie. I've had to watch it in sections of twenty minutes, just to be able to stand it. And something that ESPECIALLY bothered me: the representations of the people in the drama club. Dude, that teacher? "Brava"? You've got to be kidding me. And then that little drama queen and her wimpy brother...so, so cliché. I haven't met anybody like any of those three since I was, like, ten. And I know, I know: it's just a corny little Disney movie playing up the clichés. And for about half a second, characters like that might seem kinda funny. Then try going to school the next day and hear people asking you if you've ever had a director like that teacher, or asking how you can possibly be a "real" theatre person because you don't seem obnoxious enough...it gets old. This movie sucked. Why do people like it so much?
