Hannah Montana - The Movie
The Disney Channel's phenomenally popular Hannah Montana transformed Miley Cyrus into a teen pin-up virtually overnight when the series debuted in 2006.
The Disney Channel's phenomenally popular Hannah Montana transformed Miley Cyrus into a teen pin-up virtually overnight when the series debuted in 2006.
Last year's inaugural cinema outing, Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best Of Both Worlds Concert, cemented the popularity of the teenager and her fictitious alter ego, splicing stage performances with backstage footage.
Now, Miley returns to the big screen in the perky pop princess' first dramatic feature, searching for love in this sentimental rites of passage drama interspersed with thigh-slapping musical sequences.
Hannah Montana - The Movie is drizzled with sentiment and peppered with wholesome values, promoting the family unit and the value of enduring friendship ahead of material wealth.
Each narrative twist and turn is clearly signposted, giving the target teen audience plenty of time to get their tissues ready as Hannah makes the most important decision of her life.
To her classmates and most of her friends, Miley Stewart is just a normal, clumsy teenager, struggling to fit in.
However, to millions of screaming fans, she is global pop superstar Hannah Montana: a secret known only to her father Robbie (Billy Ray Cyrus), brother Jackson (Jason Earles) and close family and friends including Lilly (Emily Osment).
When Miley loses sight of her humble beginnings, her father drags her back home under false pretenses to Crowley Corners, Tennessee, where her grandmother Ruby (Margo Martindale) welcomes her with open arms.
At first, Miley resents being taken away from her glitzy lifestyle and personal assistant Vita (Vanessa Williams).
'Think about it as Hannah detox,' coolly suggests Robbie.
However, the teenager soon settles back into small town life, enjoying a flirtation with childhood crush Travis (Lucas Till).
When an evil developer threatens the quiet of Crowley Corners, Travis suggests a benefit concert fronted by Hannah Montana.
Can Miley juggle her twin identities and evade the roving lens of British paparazzo Oswald Granger (Peter Gunn)? Hannah Montana - The Movie is wish fulfillment with a glossed smile, book-marking the heroine's journey of self-realisation with song and dance numbers including a rootin' tootin' 'Hoedown Showdown' which invites audiences to get on their feet and 'zig zag, step, slide, lean it to the left and clap three times.' No doubt, girls across the land (and a few boys too) will be learning those dance moves with near religious fervour.
Cyrus is a lovable livewire, demonstrating good comic timing and some emotional range as she swoons in the presence of blond beau Till, whose mantra for life - 'Life's a climb...
but the view is great' - inspires the climatic ballad.
A flimsy, parallel romance between Robbie and local lovely, Lorelai (Melora Hardin), exists purely to give Billy Ray something to do.
Gunn's snapper is a pantomime villain but so much of Peter Chelsom's film is pure fantasy that he fits in snugly.
Release Date: Friday 1 May 2009
Certificate: U
Runtime: 102mins
