HANNAH MONTANTA - THE MOVIE: way better than it ought to be

The shameful truth is that the HANNAH MONTANA movie is a perfectly watchable, highly enjoyable teen rom-com even for people like me who aren't in the target demographic. It's well made, well written, funny when it should be funny, sweet when it should be sweet, and even though it stays within the constraints of the genre, it's at the top of its league. Essentially the film is a classic double-identity comedy in the manner of SHE'S THE MAN or, for people who were the right demographic in the 80s, THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS. Indeed, it's the same emotional core that powers superhero flicks like SPIDERMAN and SUPERMAN. Miley Cyrus plays a character based on herself - a Tennessee teen who has found fame as a pop-star called Hannah Montana. Her father (real life dad Billy-Ray Cyrus) and her family are in on the secret but back home, everyone just knows her as Miley. Drunk on success and the Hollywood lifestyle, dad takes Miley/Hannah back to Tennessee where she falls for the local farmboy (PRINCESS BRIDE fans!) and dad falls for someone too. Problem is, both relationships are compromised by the lies and craziness around protecting Hannah Montana's real identity when she comes to town to play a concert that will save some local land for evil developers. I rather like the idea that a Disney movie can confront the Hannah fans with the inherent weirdness of teen stardom and the dual (if not triple) identity on which the successful franchise rests. No surprises that the resolution is no resolution at all: home-town values may be best; honesty may be best; but the fans still need a product, and Miley still needs to sing.

HANNAH MONTANA - THE MOVIE was released in April 2009. It is currently on release in Argentina, New Zealand, Romania, Belgium, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is released on July 30th in Portugal, on August 19th in the Netherlands and on August 28th in Venezuela.

17 AGAIN - crimes against the R8

First up, I may not be the target demographic for this flick (teen chick) but I am a great fan of body-switch comedies like FREAKY FRIDAY and BIG, and I also really liked Zac Efron in HAIRSPRAY and the HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL flicks. Therefore, I came to this film predisposed to like it.

Sad to say, I didn't just NOT laugh, I was positively squirming in my seat for most of the film. This is because screen-writer Jason Filardi (no previous work of note) has totally mis-conceived this movie. The whole point of body switch movies is that you get a double-comedy. On the one hand, we see a young kid act preternaturally mature, which is cute. (viz. Fred Savage in VICE VERSA or Jodie Foster in the original FREAKY FRIDAY). On the other, we see a grown-up goof off, which is adult wish fulfillment (the best example of this is Jamie Lee Curtis rocking out in the FREAKY FRIDAY remake).

But 17 AGAIN breaks this fundamental rule. Instead of a body switch comedy, adult loser Mike O'Donnell (Matthew Perry) is magicked back into a 17 year old body (Zac Efron). In said body, he gets to turn his teenage son (Sterling Knight) from loser to basketball team member and comfort his daughter (Michelle Trachtenberg) when her school bully boyfriend dumps her. Instead of being preternaturally mature in a cute way, he preaches abstinence in an awe-shucks absurd manner, kills the reputation of the Audi R8, and makes eyes at his adult soon-to-be ex-wife (Leslie Mann). I found the love story between the 17 and the 40 year old deeply, deeply disturbing to watch.

Because there's no statutory adult-goofing-off in this movie, the writer has had to invent a comedic sub-plot all of his own. Accordingly, he casts Thomas Lennon as Mike O'Donnell's geeky, infantile, adult best friend, and shows him wooing the similarly geeky school Principal (Melora Hardin). It's a piss-poor attempt at humour.

And what of the target demographic? I took The Kid and she was similarly unimpressed. And the cinema of mostly teen girls squealed at the opening shot of a topless Zac Efron shooting hoops, but after that, ominous silence.

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL is on release in Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Singapore, Iceland, South Africa, Sweden and the US. It opens next weekend in France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia. It opens on April 20th in Spain and Romania and on May 6th in Belgium, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Greece and Lithuania. It opens on May 14th in Egypt, Germany, Italy and Japan and on May 28th in Russia and Bulgaria. It opens on June 5th in Finland, on June 19th in Norway, on July 10th in Brazil and on July 23rd in Portugal.

27 DRESSES - superior but still flawed rom-com

27 DRESSES sees Katherine Heigl of KNOCKED UP play a sweet girl called Jane, who copes with early grief by becoming super-romantic, super-organised and super-accommodating. The movie is about Jane facing up to all of this. She has to stop obsessing over everyone else's life and start living her own. The film is at its best in the scenes where Jane argues through her issues with a cynical journalist called Kevin and her apparently obnoxious kid sister, Tess. Katherine Heigl is a delightful actress - she makes the audience feel sympathetic even when she's doing something truly mean, and she has a real talent for physical humour. She could easily become the Meg Ryan of her generation. I also like James Marsden in this movie. He seemes believable in the crumpled cynical journalist role, even though his character isn't as well fleshed out.

The problem with 27 DRESSES is that the screen-writers didn't leave it as a relationship drama with the odd painfully funny moment. Instead, they have shoe-horned the material into a formulaic romantic-comedy. So, we have quirky wise-cracking sidekicks, one of which is Indian. We have an understanding father who makes his grown daughter pancakes. We also have the path of true love blocked by a third man (in this case, Jane is in love with her boss, played by Ed Burns). Instead of people getting to know one another while walking down the street (Woody Allen style), we have implausible scenes of bar-room drunkenness. Just when love reveals itself, the girl is betrayed by her guy. And instead of a private declaration of love in the final act, we have a ludicrously stagey public avowal. Note that all these features apply not just to 27 DRESSES, but equally to another romantic-comedy on release this week: THE ACCIDENTAL HUSBAND. All of this is a great shame because 27 DRESSES could've been a great relationship film. Instead, it's just a superior, but still flawed genre movie.

27 DRESSES was released earlier in 2008 in Australia, Hong Kong, the US, Singapore, the Philippines, Argentina, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Estonia, Icleand, Russia and Spain. It opens next week in Belgium, the Netherlands and South Korea and on the weekend of March 14th in Finland and Ireland. It opens on March 20th in Russia and Italy an don March 27th in the UK and Sweden. It opens in Norway on April 11th and in France on April 23rd.