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High school jocks, brainiacs, skaters, and punks may feel pressure to nest in their groups and resist thriving in other areas of interest secretly pulling at their heart. What if a jock loves to bake? How about a brainiac who loves to dance hip-hop? Would a skater be ridiculed for his enjoyment of playing cello in a suit and tie? Maybe a punk rocker would be cast out of his group for acting in the school play.

Star basketball player Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) begins to show signs of attraction to Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens), the new girl at school. And Troy can’t resist his urge to sing and perform in school. This causes a commotion. His teammates, his father the coach, and some of the school become outraged and try to discourage Troy’s revealed ambitions. As basketball captain, Troy simply can’t be distracted when his team is about to compete in a playoff game to win a championship. He struggles trying to tame his emerging desires, but he’s tired of having the one-note label of a basketball star. Then something happens. Other students begin to reveal that they harbor different interests and are bursting to explore them. Troy is not alone! High achiever Gabriella also wants to branch out into the school’s drama department, which encourages Troy all the more.

Peter Barsocchini may not have many writing credits, but his effort to make this high school musical a good balance of story, song, and dance truly succeeds. The songs heighten the moments, and the energetic performers embolden the drama. Danny Oretega most frequent may be found working in TV these days (though he did score with 1993’s feature film Hocus Pokus); he directs and choreographs this film well. Some of the songs like "Getcha Head in the Game," and “We’re All in This Together” stand out. But the best is “Stick to the Status Quo,” the inevitable lunch room jam.

Although the energetic songs hit their stride, the ballads are a little on the bland side. Young female lead Vanessa Anne Hudgens seems very natural onscreen and is a decent singer, but her solo "When There Was Me and You" is not easy to sit through. Give her a few years. Male lead Zac Efron shows more finesse with his decent singing and better acting. The film doesn’t overload the audience with a song every two seconds nor are there too many events that cause the audience to forget that this is a musical. I thought the filmmakers struck a nice balance and maintained a natural, interesting pace.

The first song at a winter lodge may feel a bit forced, as do some extraordinary circumstance that set things up (sigh). But shortly after, the film finds its groove back in high school. I may not be a huge fan of musicals, but I had a smile on my face watching this engaging film. The effort, energy and decent storytelling were fun. Don’t miss this one.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look? 

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 full screen presentation. Before I watched the movie, I check it in the IMDb, which specifies that the film was originally shot in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Watching the film carefully, most compositions seemed in balance without heads cut on the sides of the visible frame or too much space below or above a scene; things looked fine. I’m not sure what to think was the desired ratio. That said, how does the picture quality fare? Colors looked nicely saturated with no bleeding or banding problems. Only a few outdoor scenes came across a tad scorched. The variety of ethnic skin tones looked natural and realistic. Grain was very fine and only slightly increased during a few exterior night scenes. Edge halos were very faint on a few high- contrast sharp-edged objects. No compression problems arose. Artifacts were very rare. Overall, this transfer is relatively clean.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1, nicely presented and certainly without extravagance. It has a pleasant dynamic range, nice highs, and a stronger than expected bottom end. There is noticeable panning among the front speakers. Some of the bass lines from the musical numbers reach the deepest limits of the audio spectrum. Dialogue, and there’s lots of it, is recorded well and understandable, even when the kids are zipping through their lines too quickly. Surrounds are mildly active in scenes with action or music, but nothing too exciting; I noticed no discrete surround effects. It’s a missed opportunity in the mix. Overall, this is a pleasant track that gets the job done.

No other audio track is included. English subtitles are available.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The supplements have some interesting features, but as a whole, they don’t carry much weight. The first featurette is under Music and More and includes short music videos of songs “We’re all in this Together” and “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” Another feature is a Sing Along with the Movie, which is basically subtitled lyrics resembling karaoke. (The DVD is not karaoke, however, there is a separately sold CD soundtrack with CD+G made for karaoke.)

The next set of featurettes is under Backstage Disney. This includes the featurette Bringing it All Together: The Making of High School Musical (8:45). Many behind-the-scenes moments are on display, and interviews with the cast and director Ortega. A few things the young cast say are cute, but they’ll probably cringe over it in eight years, then after another eight years they’ll get a kick out of their comments. Two guys note that they wish they could have broken out in song and dance at random times in life. And one girl (who sounds like a bumble bee hitting high notes) thinks her voice is good; she was impressed with herself. Ah, youth. Of course there is great energy on the set and Oretega fully engages himself with the cast and the filmmaking, so it’s hard not to feel the good time had by all. Fans will get a kick out of this, although I would have liked more tough talk about scouting filming locations, dealing with conflicts, and overcoming obstacles.

Next up is the featurette Learning the Moves. This is broken down into four subsections of All 3 at the Same Time, Close Up of the Rehearsal, Wide Angle of Rehearsal, and Final Movie. Danny Oretega, associate choreographers Charles Klapow and Bonnie Story, and actors Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Gabreel help to train you on some moves. Basically, the scenes repeat a particular part of the song “Bop to the Top.” People who wanna kick their heels in the air will most enjoy this. I didn’t try it only because I’m lazy.

Trailers include previews for the 2-disc special edition 1988’s The Little Mermaid, and Meet The Robinson, Cow Belles, That’s So Raven: Raven’s Makeover Madness, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Leroy & Stitch, Eight Below, Brother Bear 2, and Spymate.

There is also a section explaining where you can Register Your DVD online.

This 98-minute film is broken up into 12 chapters.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

No DVD-ROM features are included.