to follow up on my really short review of High School Musical 2: Sing It All Or Nothing on Facebook, i thought i'd add some thoughts here after watching the asian premiere a while ago...
first off, just as all the making-of shots show, the dancing is more intense and definitely has a lot more musical-esque moves that make it more broadway...
there is almost a one-for-one match in terms of types of songs between the first and second films, with Everyday being the Breaking Free and All For One being the We're All In This Together this time round... but personally, i feel the songs are much better written this time round (there are more 5 stars in my iTunes library this time round) and they feature more of Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman, which is a good thing...
there are some good lines (once in a lifetime means there's no second chance... gonna run while we're young and keep the faith...) and sufficient heartwarming moments...
as a side note, i really think disney is to this modern age what fairytales were to the generation before us - they are the escape into a simplified version of the world where there truly are ideals that we want and do keep in the end...
there's the perfunctory scene of troy bolton (zac efron) shooting hoops without a shirt on to get the female viewers all hot and bothered...
the best written song in terms of composition for me is I Don't Dance, particularly the big band part in the second verse and the bridge with the whimsical trumpets...
and the best choreography was for Work It Out, especially the beginning where there was a move that was oddly reminiscent of Hairspray...
but one routine that cannot be ignored was Troy's (for the lack of a better word, and i really do hate using this word) emo moment during the song Bet On It...
honestly, 4 minutes of him pranicing around, pumping his fists and jumping from conveniently placed desert-like backgrounds nearly ruined the second half of the show, but it was a pivotal turn-of-the-plot scene, so yeah...
honestly, the part where he just runs and jumps in the last few lines is almost too agonizing...
nonetheless, 5 stars it is!
the one thing i wish they had included was Ryan and Sharpay's Humuhumu routine that was a bonus track in the sountrack and was mentioned several times in the movie... it's hilarious!
maybe it'll be in one of the thousand encore telecasts with extras (like the dancealong of HSM 1)
term 4 begins in a few hours, and i've pretty much just done econs this whole week, including IA 2 which i've got to print in school tomorrow (i'm so dreading having to jostle with the HL math ppl printing their math portfolios)
right on the line,
John.
