The Disney Channel Original movie ‘High School Musical’, reviewed

Hello. I, Harry Lyles Jr., will review a different Disney Channel sports movie every Thursday on SB Nation. For the purpose of nostalgia and saving you time so you don’t have to watch these movies yourself (though I encourage you watch them anyway for your own entertainment), I’ll briefly run down my favorite moments.

High School Musical is about Troy Bolton — the best basketball player at East High — and an intelligent new girl at school, Gabriella Montez. The two meet on vacation, where they sing a duet together, and exchange numbers before meeting again on the first day of school.

Their friendship, and Troy’s new interest in singing, creates a divide among all the students in the school. In the film, Troy and Gabriella are pegged against popular theatre kids Sharpay Evans and her twin brother Ryan in auditioning for the school play.

In the opening scene of the movie, Troy and Gabriella are both conveniently chosen to sing at a New Year’s Eve party while on vacation. That seems really odd because do people actually do karaoke at a New Year’s Eve party?

A hilariously bad moment that was also good was Troy turning around when she starts singing, because he immediately thought she was going to leave him in the dust.

It was kind of like the IRL version of getting salty when you send a text and don’t get a reply within the first minute. Give her a second, chief.

Disney could have set up the backstory of their singing ability in a better way than they did. They later explain that Gabriella sang in church choir, but the most Troy had ever sung was in the shower. You don’t just learn you got pipes by randomly being selected to sing karaoke at a New Year’s Eve party on vacation.

Also, his shirt is awful. Disney stays letting these young actors down.

All that said, it was a good opening song to set the scene for the movie, though.

These introductions on the first day of school could not have been more typical of a movie based at a high school, and I honestly loved it. Troy comes off the bus, and is immediately met with dap and excessive cheers, because everybody is happy to see their favorite mid-mid-range (no error on the double-mid, more on that later) shooter back on campus.

Then there’s Sharpay walking between the jocks with her phone, with no regard for anybody’s space.

Then the smart students/brainiacs/whatever you wish to call them are disgusted with the jocks. This all checks out.

And of course it’s not complete without the shy new student who is very nervous to start at a new school, and that’s where Gabriella comes in.

“I don’t want to be the school’s freaky genius girl again,” were her exact words.

Textbook, Disney. Textbook.

This movie was made in 2006, right when we were somewhat in the middle of basketball uniforms having wider shoulder sleeves. But this is just a poorly fitting t-shirt with incredibly basic numbers and letters.

Disney came up with the Mighty Ducks uniforms, right? East High could have at least gotten a Russell Athletic sponsorship.

Sharpay and Ryan are trying to find “dirt” on Gabriella, and simply find that she is a “whiz kid.”

Here is their version of Google.

I’ve always been a big fan of simply Saying The Thing. We need more Search the Internet websites online.

In a key scene in the movie, many of the school’s students are expressing their true passions after learning Troy likes to sing. That includes another basketball player, Zeke (the result of Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, and Jermaine Jackson in a blender), admitting he loves to cook.

That’s where the “shut up and dribble” was delivered in song-form.

Another student admits she loves hip-hop dancing, and another student asks “is that even legal?” [glares at Disney yet again for casual racism]

“Skater #1” as he’s called in the movie credits admits to playing the cello, and his stoner friend has no idea what it is.

But the best part about this song was the few seconds where the students who spoke their truths got up on the lunch table and danced. It’s kind of odd how the message of the song is to stay in your lane, but I suppose it kind of worked since everyone still spoke their truth?

It appears that Gabriella eating chili cheese fries with milk and an orange with some apple sauce?

Michelle Obama would never let that happen.

I don’t know what this move is that Ryan is doing, but it’s hilarious.

I’m sure it looks less awkward from other angles but this is the one we got. Sometimes you can’t overturn the call on the field.

Troy does some half-ass Michael Jackson move during his Breaking Free performance with Gabriella.

Either you lean into it (you probably shouldn’t!) or you don’t do it at all. This was a case where you don’t do it at all, since the song wasn’t up to that kind of speed.

I’m just going to slap the entire video in here, because you should watch the whole thing and watch it closely. I could make an entire blog based on just this performance — the grand musical finale of this movie — but I’m going to let you cast your own judgements and observations, for the most part.

However, I would like to point out Macaulay Culkin Lite/Joe Burrow Without A Barber Ryan in the crowd. He was very into all of his performances in the movie, and deserved these five seconds of being the guy without Sharpay.

Disney tried to help y’all out at the beginning of the song. The best character in the movie daps up Troy early in the song, showing the actual star of this here production.

And he just kills it from there on out. In that baggy dress shirt, jeans that could fit two grown adults in them, and tie flailing everywhere, he owned the floor.

Much like Buckhead bars and clubs in Atlanta did for people of color during the ‘90s and early 2000s, Disney gave him his time at the end credits when they thought no one was around to watch him shine.

Brother, I see you.

His shot chart would be hilarious. Troy’s game is like Bob Cousy’s — he’s got awful handles and takes jumpers seven feet from the basket. I took a screenshot of every shot he took, except for the ones he shot in his driveway when Gabriella was mad at him for being a Typical Dumb Jock.

We saw the auditions! But we never actually saw East High’s production. Bet it was fire, though.