By RACHEL BOLTON
Staff Writer
Rating: Bland.
I think when God told mankind to sing his praises, he wanted us to do so with choirs of angels, not with Garage band and Autotune. And that’s the kind of music we are stuck with in Sunday School Musical, a mockbuster of the popular High School Musical films.
Now I remember the High School Musical movie. I remember girls singing and dancing to it in the hallways of my junior high school and bugging me about it because I shared a last name with the male lead. To be perfectly honest, I hated that movie. But after watching Sunday School Musical, I have to say that it looks like Andrew Lloyd Webber compared to this snooze fest.
The movie begins with an autotuned soundtrack and visual effects straight out of an 80’s music video. The camera work tried to be hip but gave me motion sickness instead. There is no exposition at all. It jumps right into the plot, expecting the audience to already know everything.
It begins at a choir competition, between two churches—or is it two schools? The movie never bothers to make it clear, leaving the audience confused. One of the choirs is supposed to better than the other, but honestly they sound the same. Autotuned and repetitive. Anyway, both of the rival choirs make it to the state competition.
Then we are finally introduced to the male lead. Zack is a member of the “bad choir,” and he is its obvious leader. Zack’s conflict begins when his mother tells him with all the sensitivity and comfort of a cactus that she lost her job they are moving in with his aunt. This means that he has to change schools and leave his choir.
The rest of the movie steals the plot of “Footloose” and ends up being pretty boring. The movie is an hour and a half long, but it feels like three. It’s filled with unnecessary scenes and robot acting. Zack joins the other church/ school’s choir and makes them all “hip.” The two choirs join together to save the church of the “bad choir”which has run out of money.
The members of choir are all the uncomfortable stereotypes that we roll our eyes at. Zack is a multiracial teenage boy from the bad part of town with big dreams. He “sings” about them in beginning of the movie: “I got dreams and they’re all going to be mine!” Dre, his best friend, is a sassy African American girl with a big voice. His love interest Savannah is the goody girl preacher’s kid. His other friend is an Asian gangster (sorry it’s not Mr. Chow). But, the best character of all is the guy I like to call “Gay Bible Boy.” As this is a Christian movie, I am sure his characterization was unintentional. But he is very effeminate and loves the Bible. He was the sole entertaining part of this movie.
The choir of course wins, and everyone is happy and the audience is happy the movie is over. I don’t hate this film. It’s not sickening to watch. Its biggest weakness is that it’s dull. This movie’s biggest flaw is that it’s boring. The sad thing is that this could have been a good movie. The creators of this film should have hired a better writer and real musicians. Unfortunately they didn’t and the audience pays the price.
If you want to watch a good musical that has a Christian theme, you can’t go wrong with Jesus Christ Superstar. It’s a classic rock opera, with amazing singing. That’s a movie that praises God with good music.
