High School Musical 2 – Blu-ray Disc

Tags: Disney, Disney Channel, High School Musical, Rotten Tomato, Zac Efron

has an average rating of 5.0 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 25gb disc
PCM 5.1 @6.9Mbps & Dolby Digital 5.1
are pretty LAME to say the least
–
– 2007
– 98 minutes
– Disney (Buena Vista)

Buy it for $23.95 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by Justin Sluss

The Movie Itself is the second film for television in the “High School Musical” franchise. The plot is about as simple as it gets, rich spoiled annoying teenage girl trying to get teenage guy. It’s nothing new to see the girls going crazy for this Zac Efron kid who’s career has been launched by this Disney Channel franchise. His career and Shia LaBeouf’s have that in common, they both started out on the Disney Channel. Unlike Shia LaBeouf, Zac Efren just can’t really carry a film to an adult audience but somehow he can to this teenage audience this is apparently such a big success with. His role in the remake of “Hairspray” (which you can read my Review of here) was an exception but this film and it are like night in day when it comes to terms of a good musical. This really lacks a plot and busts out in to musical number after musical number for no reason at all.

I personally don’t see what all the fuss is about these films. I didn’t care one bit for this film in the slightest bit, maybe that’s because I’m not a 12-year-old girl. I’m actually 27-years-old and this just isn’t my “cup of tea” so, I can’t really say I suggest this title because the target audience we usually are writing to is not going to want to see a title like this. Their kids might yes, but I’m not sure High Definition on home video is at that point yet. Sure Disney is bringing their Pixar and “Platinum” titles to Blu-ray Disc next year but is this something that really demanded a High Def release? I honestly have to say NO. If your 12-year-old daughter likes this stuff and you want to get them into High Definition, I guess maybe I’d suggest this title but unless that’s the case I’m not going to be recommending this to anyone. Sorry Disney, just being honest.

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte Blu-ray Disc). First thing I have to say is that this is a made for television movie. It was shot to be aired on Disney Channel. So with that being said don’t get your expectations very high for the video quality on this release. Second, I honestly believe this is the absolute biggest waste of the use of High Definition technology to-date. Refer to my opinions on the film above for more reasons as to why I’ve come to that conclusion. With that being said, I will admit that to have been originally shot to be aired on Disney Channel it does look decent but there are some problems which I’ll explain now.

My biggest complaint comes in the form of the overly bright, high contrast palette which makes the color PINK look even uglier than it does in real life. I mean if you’re a guy, this is pretty unbearable at points to watch. The black level safe to say is not perfectly solid here. This suffers from an overly bright “soft” (pun intended) picture. The flesh tones seem fine I guess for a bunch of spoiled teenage kids dancing around without a purpose. There are some cases where motion blur becomes and issue as you’d expect from a film with a bunch over overly flamboyant dance numbers. There’s obviously some problems with artifacts in pixilation at points but I think that’s probably from the source material. I didn’t honestly spend too much time trying to figure out. I just am judging it for what it is and it’s decent but nothing really amazing in terms of a video transfer.

Audio Quality on this release is in Uncompressed Linear PCM 5.1 @6.9Mbps & Dolby Digital 5.1 @640kbps. Sadly this release actually does feature a great PCM 5.1 mix. The music is not my style but I will say that it comes through nicely with great dynamic range. There’s an excellent rear channel surround presence in the musical numbers. Dialogue is driven from primarily the center and two front channels well, it’s just a shame it’s not much worth paying attention to. The quality is fine here, it’s just the lack of quantity of material that I’d deem worthy to the content that prevents me giving this anything higher than a “4 Star Rating.” This is sure to give anyone over 18 years of age an extreme headache. Even really melodramatic Broadway musical fans will be like “Ugh!” I’m sure. This musical really does blow and I don’t mean your speakers…

Bonus Materials are all (except one “exclusive scene“) presented in standard definition MPEG-2 video with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound.

• “Bloopers” (4 minutes) claims that nobody’s perfect, which reminds me of the film itself. Get to watch those HILARIOUS outtakes that didn’t quite make it to the film we all love so much. Yea, really worth watching. (NOT!)
• “Exclusive Scene” (5 minutes) is presented in 1080p High Definition AVC MPEG-4 video and PCM 5.1 sound. It’s a newly added scene that makes this an “extended edition” of the film I guess.
• Music Videos
“You Are the Music to Me” – USA (3 minutes)
“You Are the Music to Me” – Mexico (3 minutes)
“Gotta Go My Own Way” – Canada/French (3 minutes)
“Gotta Go My Own Way” – Canada/English (3 minutes)
• “Sing Along With the Movie” gives you on-screen lyrics for all the songs from the movie to let the 12-year-old girls be able to join in and sing along, of course! DUH! AS IF!
• “High School Karaoke” claims that anyone can be a star with this somewhat interactive that, you guessed it! Let’s you SING ALONG WITH THE MOVIE! Highly entertaining? NO.
• “Backstage Disney” gives you the chance to get some juicy exclusive insight on the film and one if it’s stars new project.
“Rehearsal Cam” (31 minutes) lets you watch all of the boring rehearsal footage that actually accomplishes the feat of being more boring the film itself.
“Phineas and Ferb” Sneak Peek (2 minutes) is a glimpse at an upcoming Disney Channel show I guess from one of the girls from this film. The really annoying spoiled rich girl that wears all the pink.

These so-called bonus materials are just as honestly lame as the film is so I can’t really say anything positive about them, Sorry.