Sat down last night with my demographically ideal children -- a 13-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son -- to watch the advance DVD of the long-awaited, ultra-marketed "High School Musical 2," which premieres on Disney Channel on Aug. 17.
We plopped in front of the TV with pizza, pushed the play button and the whole adorable gang (Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel, Monique Coleman et al) broke into song. A pretty long one. And then they did it again for a reprise, in case we didn't get the lyrics down the first time through.
Hard to say how it's going to play with its target audience compared with the original. There are more songs and dances (the best of them being "I Don't Dance," which is a forgivable lie), but they come up less naturally than in the first movie. The Troy-Gabriella romance is in full bloom, which somehow seems less satisfying than when they were merely flirting. And judging from all the fansite comments, there will be plenty of girls let down by the fact that Zac keeps his shirt on most of the time because it's Vanessa's Gabriella who gets the summer lifeguard job.
If this incarnation of "HSM" doesn't hit it big, there are plenty more opportunities for fans to get their fill. Sometime in the fall the network will air "High School Musical: The Music in You," a documentary (or infomercial) about high school kids in Fort Worth, Texas, staging their own production of HSM. And there's HSM on Ice, which Zambonis in at Staples Center next October. And the second soundtrack. And the Halloween-themed movie...