Man, Camp Rock was an interesting film. Not the best, but still a fun camp movie. This might be a shorter review, but hey I’ll try to spell out what I did and did not like. It’s a Disney film that came out during the recession, there’s only so much good I can say about it.

The music in Camp Rock is interesting, like its not that bad. It just feels like Disney was trying to be overly hip with it. I can’t say I am going to get into my car and start signing some of the bars in Camp Rock. It wasn’t the best audibly, but hey it was kinda funny at times. The music felt uninspired and like repeated hip hop.

Visually this movie is dated. There are also a lot of things that just do not make sense, such as the characters unpacking their stuff in the cabins and literally every surface is suddenly covered. It just doesn’t make sense to me. The clothing just doesn’t really fit the overall vibe, if it was more of a theater camp it would make sense but it just doesn’t feel like a camp for the musically inclined visually. Also the set designs do not make sense. I know it is supposed to be a camp for like the rich kids but it just doesn’t seem to have logic. Camp Rock is a super weird visual movie. The choreography feels good, like the dance is mostly great, minus the a few notable exceptions. The characters move fluidly, but sometimes the choreography in certain dance sense doesn’t make sense with the tone or vibe the scene is trying to have. Such as the one girl getting up on the stage and dancing weird at her piano, or the entire scene where the one Jonas brother is teaching everyone how to dance and he does like 3 moves and suddenly everyone knows the routine. Like what?

The story of Camp Rock is kinda wacky as well. Like straight up I do not understand it. It’s really funny having the Jonas brothers in the movie as basically bit roles with one of them being the lead, but like he’s Shane Gray in the movie, not Joe Jonas. This might just be dating the film, because clearly the Jonas brothers were not famous enough at this point to warrant them having their real names used. Which is incredibly funny as they became one of the biggest pop sensations after this movie. Also, the fact that the other lead actor lies about parentage to lie to a bunch of rich kids is really funny. It’s quite silly because they literally are at a camp where the mom works, and she works in the kitchen. Have you ever worked in a kitchen at a summer camp? You can not tell me that the mom didn’t know she was lying about here parents, the mom would’ve heard well in advanced. Just a quick hint, the kitchen crew at summer camps knows all the secrets and shit. If you worked in a kitchen at a summer camp and you didn’t know the drama of the entire camp you must have been deaf. Also the character conflicts are super confusing, their interactions are funny but also super cringe. The story feels like it was chopped together in haste to increase Disneys stock price and use music they had already written. It’s very bad.

Overall Camp Rock isn’t the best movie, but it also isn’t the best either.

2/5

-Ben