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Camp Rock: Extended Rock Star Edition
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (2nd September 2008). |
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The Film
 After Disney’s made for TV movie “High School Musical” (2006) ignited a huge fever of fandom, oddly even for those far above it’s pre and early teen demographic, and the series has made incredible amounts of money on DVD, Disney goes at it again with Matthew Diamond’s “Camp Rock” (2008). Strutting out their new breed of soon-to-be-stars Demi Lovato and The Jonas Brothers “Camp Rock” tells the story of ‘average’ girl Michie (Lovato) who dreams of becoming a professional musician/singer/Disney-triple-threat. This summer there’s a Camp Rock where all the aspiring musicians go and coincidentally this year Connie (Maria Canals-Barrera), Michie’s mom, will be doing catering for Camp Rock and Michie will finally get to attend. This year teen-pop-superstar Shane Gray (Joe Jonas) will be attending as an instructor, mostly to make a PR move to keep his band in the clean cut graces after his ‘bad boy’ ways have sent them astray, and has promised to record a song with the winner of the Final Jam at the camp. When Michie arrives at camp she becomes friends with Caitlyn (Alyson Stoner), but later becomes friends with Tess (Meaghan Jette Martin) the camp Diva who has a complicated relationship with her mother, taste the drama. Of course it couldn’t be a movie without romance; Shane overhears someone singing, it’s Michie, and falls in love with her, but doesn’t know who she is. It’s got everything I would expect from a made-for-TV Disney movie: safe characters, crushes that are romantic but not too much for a pre-teen audience, pop-y songs that are also safe to sing along to and have nothing but good times and cheeriness at their heart. Far too much cheesiness for me, it leaves me with a bad taste over this sort of mindless and diluted entertainment. All of the actors seemed almost genetically engineered for the Disney channel (maybe that’s what really what all the ‘Imagineers’ have been up to all these years). The Jonas Brothers look like someone tried to fuse Hanson and Oasis with Peter Gallager’s eyebrows to make a teen-pop super group. They’re all terrible actors and their music sounds so clean, both in content and in actual sound, it sounds artificial. Newcomer Lovato is similarly surface, there’s not much to go off of in the script, but Lovato never goes beyond it in her path towards becoming another teen-Disney star. The writing and directing is at the exact level of the Disney channel, only with less laugh tracks backing up the action and more dramatic music. Story lines and plot are ripped out of any Disney TV show or movie, warning against superficiality in the superficial world of Disney’s creation while promoting good-clean values and fun. Fairly plain material, but mostly it’s frustrating that this kind of bubblegum material is used as an excuse for family/children’s television currently while classics like “Family Matters” (1989-1998) don’t even get a DVD release from the ABC/Disney corporation. At the same time, most of the dialogue also reeks of attempted-cool dialogue written by people who have no idea how anyone under 30 actually talks, but most of that gets glossed over. While much of this review should be taken with a grain of salt as I’m far outside the target Disney-channel demographic (though I will stop by for the occasional “Boy Meets World” (1993-2000) Re-run, oh when will Eric ever learn), overall “Camp Rock” was outright painful for me to watch. I tried to get an outsider opinion and consulted my 11 year old sisters, far closer to the demographic, but even they were unimpressed and found it too cheesy, so it doesn’t even get the distraction feature for any babysitters or parents hoping to buy themselves some time.
Video
As “Camp Rock” is filed under the "Disney Channel Orginal Made For TV" movie section of Disney’s catalogue, it’s presented in it’s original 1.33:1 aspect ratio and looks like a Disney animated show. For some reason the way it’s filmed and the way the recording is treated in post production adds to the artificiality of the world and is unsettling to say the least, but this also means the DVD transfer is good since this is how most Disney Channel Orginal shows make me feel. Everything seems too glossy from colors to lighting and even the scenes that seem to be filmed outdoors feel like bad soundstages.
Audio
It seems odd that the audio would be presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound while the film itself is presented in full screen, but what’s there sounds clean, clear and oddly unsettling as well. The music ranges from painful to mindless pop and most of the background noises feel off considering the environment. Though if you’re in to the music, the transfer brings it through loud and clear; it all sounds incredibly crisp and comes through nicely though again has that feeling of an alternate reality or “Twilight Zone” (1959-1964) episode where I can’t escape reviewing “Camp Rock” and “Hanna Montana” (2006-Present) over and over again into eternity. This disc also features optional subtitles in English for the hearing impaired.
Extras
“Camp Rock” is light on traditional extras, but presents the Disney release standards with music videos, sing-alongs, featurettes and trailers covered below, though most are just as disinteresting and unsettling as the film itself. First up are the music videos which are basically re-edited versions of the feature set to the song with some extra footage thrown in and include: - “Start the Party” runs for 1 minute and 33 seconds, starting out with maybe the most ridiculous scene of the film where one of the Jonas brothers teaches a dance class where everyone has to dance with a microphone and a baseball hat for no real reason. - “We Rock” runs for 2 minutes and 18 seconds, featuring the entire camp rock cast in footage of the final jam sequence, along with some real world footage of camp-rock fans cheering along and dancing their best in different places around the world. Next is the sing along with the movie feature which plays the feature with a karaoke styled subtitle track allowing the viewer to sing along with the songs as they turn up in the film. There’s also a songs only option which allows the viewer to choose to play only the songs in the film or choose from them individually. The songs listed are: - “Who Will I Be?” which runs for 1 minute 30 seconds. - “This is Me” runs for 1 minute 4 seconds. - “What it Takes” runs for 1 minute 49 seconds. - “Start the Party” runs for 1 minute 55 seconds. - “Too Cool” runs for 1 minute 59 seconds. - “Gotta Find You” runs for 1 minute 50 seconds. - “Play My Music” runs for 3 minutes 23 seconds. - “Hasta La Vista” runs for 1 minute 55 seconds. - “2 Stars” runs for 1 minute 52 seconds. - “Here I am” runs for 2 minutes 26 seconds. - “This is Me (Reprise)” runs for 3 minutes 14 seconds. - “We Rock” runs for 2 minutes 26 seconds. - “Our Time is Here” runs for 3 minutes 16 seconds. Next is “Camp Rock" karaoke which is literally identical to the above feature, but simply labeled Karaoke. All of the same songs are featured identical to the film version with a similar Play All feature, the only difference is the lack of sing along with the film feature and different menu art. The first featurette collective is “How to be a Rock Star!” which is a collection of tips from the cast and crew from camp rock instruct the viewer of how to become a Disney styled rock star. All together these segments run for 27 minutes and 54 seconds. The play all version of the featurettes runs as a more linear story including segments that aren’t visible through the menu, mostly hosted by AAlyson Stoner, talking with the cast and crew about the definition of a rock star and the necessities of being a rock star. There’s a lot of talk about being true to yourself and being individual, even though this kind of Disney channel phenomena are so branded over everything that it seems to run counter to the larger “Camp Rock” plan. The individual segments and their runtimes are as follows: - “Sing like a Rock Star” runs for 3 minutes and 51 seconds. - “Dress like a Rock Star” runs for 5 minutes and 23 seconds. - “Dance like a Rock Star” runs for 1 minute and 47 seconds. - “Behave like a Rock Star” runs for 6 minutes 45 seconds. - “Practice like a Rock Star” runs for 2 minutes 17 seconds. - “Network like a Rock Star” runs for 57 seconds. - “Everyone’s a Rock Star” runs for 3 minutes 38 seconds. “The Jonas Brothers: Real Life Rock Stars” featurette runs for 15 minutes and 45 seconds, the brothers discuss their stardom, one makes a desperate plea for popularity by hoping to be “the type of Rock Star you can hang out with.” The trio discusses the origins of their brotherhood as a band, and how much of the characters are reflections of themselves. “Introducing Demi Lovato” runs for 5 minutes and 40 seconds, this short interview with Lovato that covers her character and her shock at her own fame and how she’s actually a guitarist, piano player and singer. “Camp Memories” featurette runs for 5 minutes and 49 seconds, this is basically a slideshow presentation of still photos from behind the scenes of “Camp rock” set to music, a lot of posing and cheesy expressions, a lot like watching the movie. “’Hasta la Vista’ from rehersals to final jam” runs for 4 minutes and 55 seconds, this brief featurette goes behind the scenes of choreographing the whole song and dance sequence to practicing to dress rehearsals, spliced in with on set interviews with the kids doing the singing and dancing. “’Too Cool’ setting the scene” runs for 3 minutes and 37 seconds, similar to the last featurette mentioned covering rehersals and talks with the choreographer about creating the sequence, and how it was shot. A good amount of behind the scenes footage, but since I was borderline offended by the film itself, none of these special features do anything for me. What would a Disney DVD be without a plethora of bonus trailers for: - “Sleeping Beauty” runs for 2 minutes. - “Disney: Blu-ray Disc” runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “Wizards of Waverly Place: Wizard School” runs for 48 seconds. - “Phineas Ferb: The Fast and the Phineas” runs for 1 minute and 13 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” runs for 1 minute 30 seconds. - “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” runs for 1 minute and 39 seconds. - “Wizards of Waverly Place” runs for 33 seconds. - “101 Dalmations II: Patch’s London Adventure” runs for 1 minute and 29 seconds. - “Disney’s The Secret of the Magic Gourd” runs for 2 minutes and 13 seconds. - “Disney DVD Games” runs for 27 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 20 seconds. - "Disney" spot which runs for 52 seconds. There’s also an Easter egg if you click on the guitar on the camp rock logo from the main menu where you can see the crew of camp rock lip synch the final jam as they attempt to dance along and play air guitar, this runs for 2 minutes and 36 seconds.
Packaging
This disc is packaged in an amaray case housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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