High School Musical Isn't Terrible

The other day, I sat down and watched the first "High School Musical" movie with my friend Grace. Back in middle school, I used to hate these movies and the people in them (Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, etc.), but I've come to realize they are not as bad as they appear or seemed to be when you were younger. There are some bad aspects of the movie, but I'll return to that later. For now, here's why it's actually good.

1.     The acting isn't that awful. For a Disney movie, where everyone is cheesy and overacts, this movie had actors that didn't seem to be too dramatic about anything. Some of their lines were a bit ridiculous, but the way they portrayed their zany characters was really decent. And they weren't completely boring either. They had a good balance of wacky and mellow in their acting styles. They were one thing when they needed to be and the weren't when they didn't need to. I know some of  the overacting is for the kids, but I really feel like this movie is directed at kids that are about thirteen or fourteen. So for me, a seventeen-year-old, to enjoy the acting somewhat is probably good and normal.

2.     They're actually good singers. Or at the very least, they sound like good singers. Granted, in the first movie, Zac Efron is not actually the only person singing his part (Drew Seeley's voice is blended with his in all of the songs), but Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, and Lucas Grabeel are actually decent singers. Bop to the top, everybody.

3.     The dialogue itself was not too terrible. Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens actually did a pretty good job of making their lines sound realistic, like they were actually a couple, and what they said, while cheesy, fit pretty well with the story. This is high school, and everyone's supposed to be over-emotional and over-sensitive. Cliques are real and they exist in real high schools. There are Sharpays and Ryans everywhere (they're probably not as crazy), but I really think this whole movie was just a representation of an over-dramatic high school romance and what they're like, with all the drama and misunderstandings presented along the way.

4.     The only real reason I can think of that anyone would actually hate this movie is for the plot itself. It's not extremely original. Boy meets girl, they fall in love after some life-changing event, they're separated but meet again by fate at school, bad guys try to break them up, boy and girl overcome the odds, boy and girl live happily ever after. But there's a twist in this movie: at one point, the friends are the bad guys. How often does this happen? Where what really happens is portrayed? Sometimes, friends mess up and I'm glad this was addressed in this movie.

There you have it, my reasons for why "High School Musical" doesn't suck as much as you think it did back in middle school. If I were to have rated this movie in middle school, it would have gotten a negative one million out of ten, but now I would probably give it 6/10.

Thanks for reading everybody!