High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Kenny Ortega’s film is the first in the series to reach cinemas; the two before it were made for the Disney Channel, and the same man directed and choreographed all three. One number shows where the extra money went: in “Scream” Zac Efron climbs rotating walls, moves through the corridors in a storm and dances on the counterweights of the stage curtain. Nothing on that scale exists in the television films. The conflict comes from a calendar rather than a villain. Everyone has to decide what happens after graduation, the film builds that as a countdown, and the school musical becomes the place where those decisions get rehearsed. The grosses say plainly where the audience was. The North American opening weekend took 42 million dollars, almost half of the entire 90.6 million domestic run, so the crowd arrived in the first three days and thinned fast. Of the 252.9 million worldwide, 162.4 million came from outside North America. Shooting took place in Salt Lake City. A good fit if you want the songs to use the school corridors and the stage machinery themselves as sets, and do not mind a story built on a parting schedule rather than a crisis. Not for viewers new to the series; the film assumes two films of history for its ensemble and reintroduces nobody.