High School Musical 3: Senior Year

The Wildcats hit their final year at East High in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, and the question hanging over everyone is what happens after graduation. Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) are staring down separate colleges, and the rest of the crew is scrambling to figure out their own next steps. Director Kenny Ortega, who steered the first two films, returns to close out the trilogy with a bigger canvas and a theatrical release. The cast is the same core group that built the franchise: Efron and Hudgens, plus Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay Evans, Lucas Grabeel as Ryan Evans, Corbin Bleu as Chad Danforth, and Monique Coleman as Taylor McKessie. The story uses a spring musical as its framework, letting the characters sing and dance through their anxieties about leaving high school behind. It is a coming-of-age comedy-drama with family-friendly G-rated appeal, and the music and choreography are as central as the plot. Made for a reported $11 million, the film pulled in more than $252 million worldwide, a massive return that showed how much the Disney Channel franchise had grown. Critics were mixed to positive, and the 6.5/10 audience rating on IMDb suggests fans got the send-off they wanted. It is the third and final entry in the High School Musical collection, and it leans into the bittersweet tone of a last hurrah.[edit]