Introduction

This is a post that is a repurposing of an old-school Mini-Review Round-Up post. As stated here I am essentially done with running multi-film review posts. Each film deserves its own review. Therefore I will repost, and at times add to, old reviews periodically. It is also connects to March to Disney, an annual theme that starts today. Enjoy!

Teen Beach Movie

I’ve discussed previously when Disney Channel Original Movies (DCOMs) come up that all films are judged on their own and not in comparison to one other kinds of films. Having got that out of the way, save for a few issues, I was taken aback by Teen Beach Movie; inasmuch as there’s one hysterically funny song/commentary on the nature of the musical. Also enjoyable is the fact that it’s a tongue-in-cheek homage to teen subculture cinema of the ’60s spun forward to the present.

First and foremost among the issues is that you have to completely suspend disbelief and go with the concept that a surfboard with magic powers transports the leads into the film they’re stuck in. While it’s the need of the characters that gets it to act, but it’s not as mysterious or as clear as it could be. The second large one was the occasional temporal breaks in dialogue the film-within-film characters had saying things that didn’t feel true to their period.

However, it establishes early what the conflict that arises between the heroes is and there is a clarity throughout that they need to find a way out of the situation. Slowly, almost without they or us noticing, there are consequences of being stuck in the film. It’s less bombastically self-important than other DCOMs with even sillier premises and ultimately it comes back to the main characters and not the parody or the revisionist look at gender roles in the sixties. It’s far funnier and more enjoyable than it likely has any business being.

7/10