Remember your high school prom? Getting ready for your upcoming one? I thought it was all about spiking the punch, getting a hotel room for the night and cutting loose with people you won’t have to see again until the reunion ten years later. According to Disney, however, it’s that magical night where no matter which clique or high school stereotype you were, it doesn’t matter and you can have a good time that you’ll remember for eternity. Prom is the most wholesome formulated flick I’ve seen in a long while. There’s no depth, hardly any emotion or anything unexpected. It’s the quintessential teen dramedy that girls will gossip over and guys…guys, why are you watching this?
The movie takes place three weeks before prom and everything is going according to plan but you know that’s about to change. Our narrator is Nova Prescott (Aimee Teegarden) who is the class president and head of the prom planning committee. She’s little miss perfect and has all her ducks in a row. She would win the “award for winning most awards.” She has her heart set on the other goody goody Brandon (Jonathan Keitz) to ask her to prom but if you know these movies there’s a bad boy that appears from behind fountains he fixes (you’ll get it once you see the movie). This bad boy is named Jesse Richter (Thomas McDonell) and has long hair, wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle…total stereotypical bad ass. He also has the stereotypical misunderstood heart of a fighter who takes care of his single mom and little brother.
Good Girl meet Bad Boy. Wait, haven't I seen this movie before? like a hundred times...
That’s the main story but this is an ensemble cast flick which moves from couple to couple. We have the obvious prom king and queen via player player/captain of the lacrosse team Tyler Barso (DeVaughn Nixon) and beautiful Jordan Lundley (Kylie Bunbury). The couple together since elementary school whose paths are about to separate with Justin Wexler (Jared Kusnitz) going to the University of Michigan and Mei Kwan (Yin CHang) heading to New York (she hasn’t told him yet). A musically obsessed sophomore friend duo – Lucas (Nolan Sotillo) and Corey (Cameron Monaghan) who try to get Lucas to finally ask out his cutest crush Simone Daniels (Danielle Campbell) who is being played by Tyler (o0o0o0o plot thickens). The zoned out Rolo (Joe Adler) who may or may not have a hot girlfriend from Canada that gossip queen Ali Gomez (Janelle Ortiz) doesn’t believe. And my favorite side plot…the awkwardly shy Lloyd (Nicholas Braun) and his step sister with the adorable smile Tess Torres (Raini Rodriguez). Whew, lots to keep track of but the stories are so straightforward and predictable…it’s not a problem.
Adorable Disney Munchkin.
The movie begins with all the cutesy creative ways guys ask out their dates out to the prom. Everything goes swimmingly except for Lloyd who can’t seem to catch a break and has many funny failed attempts with trying to ask out every single girl in school. In the weeks leading up to prom, everyone’s busy and Nova has no one to help her prepare for the big night. Bad boy Jesse gets in trouble with the principal and is ordered to assist Nova or not graduate. So as they get to know each other (and fall in looooooove), the other couples go through their mundane high school drama and before you know it everyone’s at the dance. You know the Disney formula: here are our characters, oh no…here’s a problem for each of the characters that they are obviously going to overcome, learn a lesson and then dance. The End.
These two are in high school...really?
There’s plenty to smirk about and go awwww over but the movie is as flat as high school teenagers…there’s just not much to work with. The major theme in this movie is to not make a big deal over whatever you’re worrying about and know that everything will work out in the end. No hard hitting themes like sex, drugs, abuse, bullying or even not going to college. Instead you get lines like my favorite: “but now I’m in this tree and you’re so beautiful.” Just rainbows and unicorns. This is pretty much perfect marketing timing for a bunch of high school girls to see a movie in anticipation of their own proms. So now you have to buy your prom tickets, find a date, get a limo, buy a tux or dress…and see this movie. So only one question left: Will you go to prom with me?
girls next to me every 5 minutes: "awww, he's so cute"
Old fairy tale brought back to life, beautiful princess, prestigious castle, lovable supporting characters. Tangled has all the elements of a great classic Disney film. Visually, it was stunning…story-wise, it was captivating…and song-wise, it was just enough. There was little wrong with Tangled and I think it’ll go down as another classic to add to the collection that has only been growing recently thanks to Pixar.
Disney started their showcase with a first look at Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time starring Jake Gyllenhaal, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Mike Newell…all three were in attendance to talk about the movie. Prince of Persia is based on the popular video game of the same name. It follows the adventures of a prince who stumbles upon a mythical object which can affect time itself. He teams up with the princess of his rivals to stop a sandstorm which would end of the world. From what they showed and said, it’s definitely an action-packed summer blockbuster but Jerry kept highlighting the points that it would have lots of comedy and romance. Pretty much, it’s trying to have mass appeal and target the largest market possible. It was filmed in Morocco where it was said to be over a hundred degrees every day. Additionally, they sent teams around the world to take authentic pictures and bring back the images to build unique sets. But even with that backdrop, a lot of the movie will be computer generated. The footage they showed looked very common and bland. Granted, it’s still early and the scenes weren’t polished up yet. However, the time travel affects with the sand looked awesome as well as the scenes with snakes…they did some really cool things there. It’s reminiscent of the director, Mike Newell’s work in Harry Potter, very magical. You can expect a lot of free running/parkour type stuff from Jake who literally runs up walls.
Jerry Bruckheimer stayed in his seat as the panels changed because he was presenting his 2nd upcoming film with Disney, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel and is directed by Jon Turteltaub. Set in modern-day, a college student in New York City finds himself in a magical battle between good and evil. He is destined to become a great and powerful sorcerer trained by an old wizard by the name of Balthazar. On the plot, Jon Turteltaub commented on how fundamental this plot is to Disney and that it originated from a segment in Fantasia. He comically said that obviously they’re not doing a cartoon for two hours of a mop (even though the iconic sequence of the mop is in the film). To me, the footage looked amazing. This is going to be a homerun for Disney and regain them some lost fans while gaining them a lot of new ones from the younger generation who has no idea what Fantasia is and would definitely not sit through it today. You can tell it’s still geared towards kids, but it looks really funny and entertaining…kind of a Harry Potter like feel. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice looks at magic a different way than Harry Potter though. Turteltaub said he wanted to create a very realistic and modern weird feeling as if you were in this world with the characters on the screen and then the magic would enter all of our lives.
Finally, Disney’s last film showcased was a continuation of a little known franchise from Disney Pixar called Toy Story 3. The third film in this series follows the characters as they are abandoned in a day care while their owner, Andy, goes away to college. At first, to all of the toys except Woody, it looks like a paradise but kids love new toys…The director, Lee Unkrich, said that it took two days in a cabin to come up with the story but over two and half years of storyboarding and fine tuning. He felt the pressure of taking this huge franchise and creating a third feature length film every day of the process of making it but it doesn’t look like he failed…every time a new character was shown to the audience, there was a collective “awww.” There’s no doubt in my mind that this film will resonate with the new generation of kids and that the old fans will flock back to see the new instalment. When an audience member asked Jeff Garlin about improvising in the movie he said that when the script is good, he doesn’t like to improvise. He likes to improvise in order to help a movie out but with Wall-E and Toy Story 3, he felt that the scripts were great so that should give you an idea of how good this one is going to be.
WonderCon is one of the country’s best comics conventions featuring guests and events for comics, movies, video games, and other popular media. This year, WonderCon had presentations by such Hollywood studios as Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, and Lionsgate.
