Blu-ray Movie Reviews

It's almost graduation day for high school seniors Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay, Chad, Ryan and Taylor - and the thought of heading off in separate directions after leaving East High has these Wildcats thinking they need to do something they'll remember forever. Together with the rest of the Wildcats, they stage a spring musical reflecting their hopes and fears about the future and their unforgettable experiences growing up together. But with graduation approaching and college plans in question, what will become of the dreams, romances and friendships of East High's senior Wildcats?

Senior year has come at last for the gang at East High. This one picks up right where the last one left off but has a bit more production polish than the films before it. This is still a tween dream come true with plenty of characters that look right out of a teen fashion add, lots of catchy pop tunes and plenty of dancing. The film still shows its Disney Channel roots though with a storyline that is definitely geared to the younger crowd and is full of tacky clichs.

I was actually expecting a bit stronger performance in the video department given the larger production budget and feature release. While still a great looking image it doesn’t have quite the fine detail and overall dimensionality of some of Disney’s other feature films. The image is a bit flat at times and a tad darker than I would expect for the genre. I didn’t see any signs of post processing and compression is never an issue but the image still falls short a bit. Colors are extremely vibrant and intentionally blown out a bit and this lends to the playful feel of the film and the sensation of watching a long play Target commercial. Still, there is plenty of eye candy here and I’m sure your younger ones won’t complain.

Disney delivers this one in DTS-HD Master Audio and overall it is a pretty good. The sound design is pretty simple and the production definitely revolves around the singing sequences, which sound very produced and reminded me of Grease in how much they change the soundtrack. The pop tunes are catchy and do a nice job of opening up the soundstage and this film is better in subtle spatial quality than the previous films.

To say this one is feature loaded would be an understatement. This three-disc set includes not only a digital copy for your portable player but the complete DVD version of the film as well. Disney has announced this kind of support for a few titles coming out. This is also a BD-Live enabled title allowing you to share photos with friends on the network during the film. Traditional features include interviews, short production takes and cast profiles. There are also a lot of deleted scenes and bloopers and for the music fans there is a sing-along mode for the entire movie! A great package from Disney on this tween favorite.

While still not really a film for my demographic Disney has done a fine job bringing the popular series to Blu-ray. I was expecting a bit more from the video presentation on this one but it still delivers where it counts. If your kids (or you) are into this series, then this is a no brainer.