Rating: [rate 5]

While on a New Year’s Eve vacation, high school hoops star Troy and brainy Gabriella — two teens who are worlds apart — meet. During a karaoke contest they discover their love for singing and interest in each other. After vacation, Troy finds out that Gabriella is the new girl at his school. Troy and Gabriella decide to audition for the upcoming high school musical. Troy’s best friend Chad and Gabriella’s new friend Taylor discourage them from moving forward with their plans. But it’s Ryan and his sister Sharpay — considered the school’s top theatrical talents — who really try to thwart their efforts. Find out how Troy and Gabriella’s decision to audition turns their world and their school upside down! – from Official Website

Aha! High School Musical! ♥ ♥ ♥ How I love thee! :P Okay, I actually got to watch this movie a few weeks earlier than its Asia premiere in Disney Channel. It has been plugged in the said channel almost every day since the start of May, I think, and because I spend most of my day at home as a bum watching Disney, seeing its trailers and previews everywhere got me curious. I got to read a few articles about the movie before watching it, which got me into the hype of really wanting to watch it, since almost all entries and reviews I’ve read more or less gushes about how good a movie it was. I started downloading the soundtrack to get to know the songs and to make me wait until the premiere date. But I felt like June 25 is too far away (especially for a bum like me), and when I heard that my friend Redg has a copy, I immediately asked for one. :P HSM, here we goooo. :)

High School Musical starts with a New Year’s Eve party, where brainy Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) is sitting somewhere, reading a book. Her mom (Soccorro Herrera) takes her book and urges her to get dressed and join the party. Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) is playing basketball with his dad who is also his coach (Bart Johnson) and was stopped by Mrs. Bolton and urges the Zac to go to the “young adults” party so that she and his father can go to the adults party. Down at the party, Gabriella enters, sits on a chair and continues reading while Troy gets in, looks around and then starts yawning. A couple had just finished singing onstage and the emcee is looking for someone to sing next when the spotlights landed on Troy and Gabriella, forcing them to sing onstage, being a total stranger to each other.

The magic of music and their chemistry to each other led them to sing their hearts out with the song (aptly entitled Start of Something New). After their number, the two of them talk outside about their nonexistent singing careers and was caught under the fireworks of New Year. It was then their attraction to each other starts. They exchanged numbers, promising to call and then Gabriella leaves.

Enter the school year, where Troy arrives and is practically welcomed by Chad (Corbin Bleu), his best friend and his teammates like a king, for his upcoming responsibility of leading the East High Wildcats basketball team into the championships for the next week. As they got into the school, then comes Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale) and Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel), twins and president of the Drama Club, also known for their real life drama and stage-like presence everywhere. As one of the jocks make a joke about them, Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman), the president of the Chemistry club, makes a remark on how the jocks are “lower” than the brainiacs/intellectuals in the civilization scale.

Then comes Gabriella, who turns out to be a new student in East High and desperately wants to be known other than the “school’s freaky genius girl.” She goes to homeroom with Ms. Darbus (Alyson Reed), which is also Troy’s homeroom. Troy sees her, but wasn’t sure that if it is Gabriella and calls her, thus sending him and some other people into Darbus’ detention. The two meet outside to talk and as they were walking, they stopped in front of the school’s annual musical sign up sheet, where Sharpay comes and signs her name for her and her brother on with much elaboration, to show that she and Ryan owns that spot.

After a brief discussion about the musical, Troy and Gabriella couldn’t get it out of their minds and then met at the auditorium (by surprise) on the day of the audition. They didn’t get to audition formally, but after helping the play’s composer, Kelsi Nielsen (Olesya Rulin), from an embarrassing fall, they got to perform a short piece which earned them callbacks.

This opened an outrage to the students of East High, who, unknowingly, had their own roles to play in the school. Suddenly, Zeke, one of Troy’s teammates, admitted that he’s into baking, one of the brainiacs admits that she’s into hiphop dancing and one of the skater/surfer duded tells the school that he plays the cello (with a coat and tie!). Troy and Gabriella didn’t see much of these changes, but everyone else is aware. Chad and Taylor finds a way to get Troy and Gabriella away from the singing, while Ryan and Sharpay find a way to get them out of the callback and out of the show.

After that very detailed summary (I told you I’m a fan), I’ll stop because I don’t want to spoil you too much. :P High School Musical‘s story can be summed up with a line: Don’t let yourself be limited by what people think you should do. Don’t stick to the status quo, break free from it. :) The movie isn’t so hard to digest; it could even fall as cheesy on some parts (especially Gabriella’s solo :P MTV moment, totally forgettable), and the storyline is so basic that if you remove all the musical numbers, the movie wouldn’t even reach about an hour. But then if there’s no song number, it wouldn’t be High School Musical. :P

The movie is generally a feel good movie and it would make you want to sing and dance along as you watch it. The movie looks so much fun and happy that you couldn’t help but feel happy as well as you watch it. It’s also completely wholesome (just a bit of love interest, it didn’t dominate the movie’s story at all), and it’s something you wouldn’t mind letting little kids watch it with you…over and over again. :)

Final trivia before I end: Vanessa Anne Hudgens, who plays Gabriella, is half Filipina. :) That’s surely another reason to watch that movie for us Filipinos since we love things like these. :)

We’re soaring, flying, there’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach…if we’re trying, then we’re breaking free.
– Troy and Gabriella, Breaking Free