HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2

Written by Aaron Roxby

A Letter to Zac Efron:

Dear Zac,

I am sorry to say that it is over between us. Sure, you have no idea who I am, I was never really a fan of yours to begin with and I hate to have to tell you this way, in a public Internet review that you will never read, but your latest film, High School Musical 2 is the last straw.

There is no easy way to say this, so I will blunt. You have become distressingly orange, Zac. I am not certain if it is the result of poor makeup, a botched tanning session, the costumes that you wear or something within the camera, but in High School Musical 2, you look a bit like the Jack-o-Lantern I once carved in the image of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. This, however, is a superficial thing and certainly not enough to end a relationship as nonexistent as ours. While I was not what one might call a fan of the first High School Musical, it wasn't awful for what it was and, when compared to other entertainment aimed at pre-teen girls, it was less infuriating than most, with some legitimately catchy tunes and a few fun dance numbers. Granted, none of these positive moments belonged to your character, but in the first film, Troy Bolton was innocuous enough to sort of blend into the background.

Well, this time around, Troy is brought front and center, forcing the extensive supporting cast (with the exception of Ashley Tisdale's and Lucas Grabeel's Evans family) into the background. The trouble is, while Troy was, at worst, uninteresting in High School Musical, in part 2, he is an actively infuriating douchebag. To refresh your memory, Zac, High School Musical 2 focuses on the summer vacation immediately following the school year shown in the first movie. Pink drama queen Sharpay Evans decides that she wants you to marry her, or sing with her or something and so she gets you a job as a waiter/caddy at the Country Club where she spends the summer with her super-rich family. You get jobs for the rest of the first film's cast, so that they can be present, but contribute next to nothing to the actual proceedings. To further her nefarious plan, Sharpay uses her father to get you accepted to the country club as a member and hooked up with the University of Albuquerque basketball team. Now, you must choose between your friends who are (presumably) holding you back and generally behaving like a dick for the sake of your future. I can understand not wanting to ask the college guys to play HORSE or whatever, with your high school buddies, but is it really necessary to start treating your waiter friends like servants? Or to start ignoring your girlfriend in favor of the modern-day Miss Piggy?

Although, I suppose that I can understand your behavior. While seemingly every character, from the fat girl who liked to Pop and Lock to the football playing baker returns, no one has any kind of personality this time. Even larger characters, like Corbin (Sigh) Bleu's Chad Danforth and Vanessa Hudgens' Gabriella Montez seem to little but stand around waiting to back you up in the next, ultimately forgettable musical number.

High School Musical 2 looks and sounds about as good as it possibly could, meaning it looks and sounds better than a special episode of Saved by the Bell. Extras-wise, in the tradtional Disney style, it is packed with additional content that is almost uniformly uninforming fluff. The new musical number, Humuhumunukunukuapua'a is probably the best of the additional content and is one of the better numbers in the movie.

I would like to say that it fun while it lasted, Zac, but I knew this was coming the first time that I saw you, in the hallways of East High, what seems like so long ago. While High School Musical 2 is not nearly as bad a lot of things out there, it is still a long way from the quality of even the first High School Musical and not in the same school district of Grease 2.