Blu-ray Review: High School Musical 2

THE MOVIE: 3 stars out of 5

First off, my kids would kill me if I gave this release a lower score. They just love this release. However, it is simply not my cup of tea, although it is very good at appealing to its target audience, of which I am not a member given that my early teenage years are well behind me.The film finds the high school kids from East High School back, this time on summer vacation with the drama queen Sharpay using her influence at a local country club her parents own to get her heartthrob, Troy a summer job. However, when Troy helps land his girlfriend, Gabrielle a job as the same club, it sets off Sharpay who makes it difficult for Troy and his friends to continue to work there. This release is full of rather light and happy musical and dance sequences that are rather repetitious musically and not at all geared to the adult audience. However, if your kids are anything like mine, they will love this release. Recommended for families with teen and pre teen children.

THE VIDEO: 4 1/3 stars out of 5

High School Musical 2: Extended Edition is encoded using AVC and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:78:1. I must say from the outset that I am somewhat disappointed with the picture quality on this release. By no means is it a bad looking release, quite the contrary. The release looks very good with vibrant colors, deep blacks and accurate skin tones. However, I found the image to be rather flat and worse, to lack the clarity we associate with the best high def. It was almost like there was a slight haze or veil over the image. Watching the image, I always felt like it could have and should have looked better. Considering the film was shot in high definition, I expected a better image , certainly one with more of that you are there, looking through a window clarity.

THE AUDIO: 4 1/2 stars out of 5

Presented in an uncompressed 5.1 PCM track at 48 kHz/24 bit, the audio track on this release is very good although it also suffers a similar problem as the video, that is, a lack of depth. The overall sound of the release is very smooth and clear. The dialogue is full and very easy to follow and well placed in the mix. Bass response is solid as well. However, the sound is not as open and spacious as some of the more recent Disney releases on Blu-Ray and lacks that totally immersive sound that one experiences on the better high def releases. While it is a fine sounding release, it just lacks that open and refined sound characteristic of the best that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD advanced audio codecs can offer.

IN CONCLUSION

While this release fell somewhat short of my expectations on the audio and video side, it still looks and sounds very good and a huge upgrade over the DVD release and its showing on TV. Recommended for families with teen and pre-teen children.

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