Who would have thought that the live-action musical would ever make a comeback? Yet playing off the strengths of High School Musical and High School Musical 2 comes another live-action musical, The American Mall, from the folks at MTV. Featuring a cast of unknowns, all part of the pimple cream crowd, the biggest disappointment in the energetic musical film is that virtually the entire cast seems to be, at best, lip-synching experts. One might hope that at least a couple of the leads would be cast for their singing voices, but apparently, no such luck.
The movie is so good-natured and clean-cut, one might expect Disney Studios to be the creator, rather than MTV. Like most good musicals, there are plenty of catchy tunes and the acting segments are a story-frame constructed merely to link each production number together. There is also plenty of dancing, complete with tributes to “classic Hollywood” musicals where there are overhead shots of dancers lined up in patterns doing choreographic kicks.
The tale centers on musical prodigy Ally, whose mom is a disillusioned pop star who now runs a struggling music story in a mall. Ally’s main problem is that while she can start songs that are potential hits, she can never seem to finish her compositions.
Not, that is, until she runs into Joey, another musical prodigy who works on the mall’s maintenance crew. Their connection is threatened, of course; in this case, by spoiled brat Madison, daughter of the mall’s owner, who is seeking to bump the music store out of the mall to make way for her own line of high-fashion clothing stores.
Like most good musicals, there’s a classic good vs. evil theme that runs throughout, and the payoff (without spoiling too much or being overly specific) is a classic old-time Hollywood happy ending that should make folks come away humming some of the tunes and wondering when Nina Dobrev (Ally), Rob Mayes (Joey) and Autumn Reeser (Madison) might actually be in something else, as they turn in decent enough performances in a movie that promises low expectations going in.
The main difference between The American Mall and classic Hollywood musicals like The Sound of Music is that the old Hollywood stuff offered up stars like Julie Andrews who actually knew how to sing. That’s the biggest stickler with The American Mall; not only do none of the singing voices seem to match the actors, but the singers who are used as stand-ins have their voices so overly-filtered that it’s hard to tell how much real talent is actually there.
While The American Mall is not going to make anyone forget about Singin’ In the Rain, The Sound of Music or even Grease, it’s a good-natured flick that’s appropriate viewing for the entire family, and that’s worth a look, at least. Plus, since the music is all modern bubblegum rock, it’s more relatable to the younger generation that those older, though superior, movies.
