After High School Musical became a surprise hit and turned into a huge franchise that ended up with two TV movies, a third film getting a cinema release (that made a mint) and endless merchandise, its surprising Disney didnt capitalise on it more. High School Musical 3 seemed like it was trying to introduce a new cast of characters who could carry the franchise on, but when those newbies werent well received, everything went quiet.
However while Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens went off to the movies, Ashley Tisdale largely stayed within the Disney family, and is now getting her own HSM spin-off, Sharpays Fabulous Adventure. Sharpay has always been a surprising character, as she was pretty much the villainess of the first HSM film, and was only slightly softened in the next two. However shes always been immensely popular, probably because while shes bitchy and shallow, shes also funny and gets to live a life of excess many young girls would love to be able to emulate.
It should be mentioned though, that while this is an HSM spin-off, people dont randomly burst into song in this film. There are tunes, but there are fewer of them, and theyre either sung because the character is actually meant to be singing a song, or are background music that just happens to be sung by one of the actors.
Sharpay has now graduated high school but is still extremely pampered and rather selfish. She also remains determined to become a star and when a Broadway producer invites her to New York for an audition, she plots to get her father to allow her to go, even though hes not convinced shes ready. However when she gets to the Big Apple, things go downhill quickly. The luxurious apartment her dads rented for her wont allow her dog to stay, but she knows if she tells her father that, hell demand she comes back home.
Luckily Sharpay meets a cute young guy who seems to want to film everything she does. While normally that would just seem creepy, hes sort of a family friend. Hes also a film student and Sharpay is the kind of girl wholl never turn down the chance to be in front of a camera. He knows a rather rundown apartment she can stay in, so Sharpay moves in (I just hope young girls watching this dont think this is what you should do if you meet strange men on the street), horrified at where shes supposed to live.
If that werent bad enough, when she gets to the audition, it turns out theyre actually interested in her dog, rather than her. Sharpay quickly hatches a plan get her dog into the show (and to do that shell have to battle against the young owner of a rival pooch), then try to become friends with the star of the musical, and hopefully begin to claw her way to fame that way.
While not as good as the High School Musical movies, Sharpays Fabulous Adventure is better than it perhaps should be. It is insanely predictable, rather cheesy, and as mentioned above, has aspects where you just hope tween viewers arent looking at Sharpay as a role model, but its also chirpy, moves along at a fair clip, is fairly funny and ensures the audience has a good time. Its a film where its heart is definitely in the right place, even if its not successfull 100% of the time.
Much of the credit must go to Ashley Tisdale, because as she did in HSM, she takes what should be a horrible character and imbues her with charm, humour and enough naiveté and humanity to ensure you dont come away thinking shes just a bit of a bitch. Austin Butler as the love interest isnt bad either, even if his main job is to hang around looking all dreamboaty.
There arent there many features, just a few okay outtakes and blooper, and an Austin Cam featurette. The latter is basically a making of featurette, but based around the fact that as hes playing a film student who feels the need to document every moment of his life, Austin Butler had to carry a camera round with him, which much of the time was actually filming.
Overall Verdict: Those expecting High School Musical 4 will be disappointed, but Sharpays Fabulous Adventure is nevertheless bright and breezy enough to be good tween viewing.
Special Features:
Outtakes
Austin Cam Featurette
Bloopers
Reviewer: Tim Isaac