MPAA Rated – PG
It’s 1:44 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| Prom Movie Stats & Links |
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| Starring: | Aimee Teegarden, Thomas McDonell |
| MPAA Rated: | PG |
| Released By: | Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment |
| Kiddie Movie: | Tween girls is probably best. |
| Date Movie: | Only if she’s the mom. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | Just some kissing. It’s Disney clean. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | A small fight. |
| Action: | Nah. |
| Laughs: | If you’re a tween girl, maybe. |
| Memorable Scene: | Nothing really. |
| Memorable Quote: | Nothing really. |
| Directed By: | Joe Nussbaum |
I know it’s a Disney movie, and I know it’s not really made for the likes of me, a 40-something year old reviewer, but please, Disney, you are better than this movie. I mean, it’s like they took the cookie-cutter, mostly perfect world of Hannah Montana, changed characters, and decided to make a movie about prom. Yup, the movie is “Prom,” I don’t think there is any school in the world that has a prom like this, and I suppose if you want to shield your pre-teen about high school and give them the “perfect world” version, Disney did its job. Let’s get to the story…
It’s the end of high school in Perfectia, or at least some high school, and Nova (Aimee Teegarden) is the go-getter, cute girl who dreams of the perfect prom and is in the midst of planning it. She is hoping her prince-charming will ask her, but ever-so-slowly things go wrong when she is asked to prom by someone else, and then there is a fire destroying all things prom decoration. Enter Jesse (Thomas McDonell). He’s the bad-boy in this story, if you really want to call him that, whose biggest problem seems to be that he has a complicated life outside of high school. As punishment for something minor by most any other high school standard, he is ordered to help Nova rebuild all of the decorations for prom, and yes, you can pretty much assume what happens when Ms. Perfect is paired with Mr. Bad-Boy, right before the prom.
And so, we get little stories about various high schoolers, from the jock, to the nerd, to the dork, to the Goth, and how their lives get effected by A) Having to leave high school soon, B) Having to ask the right person to prom, C) Having to deal with the jock making the moves on your girl, D) Girls breaking up best friends, and E) Just about every other cliché you can think of, but in a Disney-safe kind of way.
Look, the movie is pretty much harmless, as long as your daughter doesn’t get ultimately delusioned that high school will be the way this movie shows it to be. Yes, the stories probably end up similar, but the real world always seems a little, or maybe a lot, edgier than a Disney film, so I guess, sure, for your younger daughter, she who likes something like a Hannah Montana, “Prom” will give her a Disney-fake world, but if your girl has already hit freshman year I’m guessing she will already know nothing happens like it happens in “Prom.”
In the end the acting of the lead characters is fine, it’s your classic story of good-girl falls for bad-boy who really isn’t that bad when you get to know him, all wrapped up in Disney goodness. For me the movie was a 1 star, cliché mess, but for some young girls I can see them finding it a 4 star gem. I’ll average stuff together, drop it a bit for a lot of bad acting by most others in the film (watch the “Making of” featurette on the Blu-ray and you’ll find out why), and leave this movie at 2 stars. And I hate to say it, I remember the trailer, laughed a little during the clips of Justin (Jared Kusnitz) trying to ask girls to prom, and thought it might be better. Sadly, in the end, even those scenes turned out bad.
As far as the Blu-ray you get a “Making of…,” which is nice enough in telling you how the film ended up on the big screen, the blooper reel is pretty lame, you find that they made the right decision in leaving out the deleted scenes, and there are some music videos for your viewing pleasure. They don’t really add that much, so for the most part your tween is getting this to keep watching the movie, making her own dream of how her prom will be, and probably finding Jesse dreamy. And, oh yea, I almost forgot the “Last Chance Lloyd” short, highlighting Lloyd’s various exploits at trying to ask a girl to prom. Cute enough, but then it just dragged on too long. Oh well.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!