5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.8 |
Camp Rock, a music-filled Disney Channel Original Movie, features the Jonas Brothers as members of a leading musical group, Connect 3. When member Shane Gray (Joe Jonas) needs to counter his bad boy rocker image, he is sent by his fellow band members Nate (Nick Jonas) and Jason (Kevin Jonas) to the music camp as a guest instructor. There he meets camper Mitchie Torres (Demi Lovato), a teen girl with an extraordinary voice and a driving ambition to be a pop singer but unfortunately she can only spend her summer at the expensive camp by helping her mom work in the mess hall between classes. When Shane overhears Mitchie singing from behind closed doors, he sets out to find the girl with the beautiful voice.
Starring: Demi Lovato, Joe Jonas, Meaghan Martin, Maria Canals-Barrera, Alyson StonerFamily | 100% |
Comedy | 81% |
Romance | 45% |
Musical | 37% |
Teen | 35% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: LPCM 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 1.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Disney's bizarre juggernaut of squeaky-clean teen musicals aimed at pre-adolescents continues ever onward in Camp Rock, a Disney Channel Original Movie that premiered just two months ago on 20 June. Following the like of the Cheetah Girls, Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, and all the other Zac Efrons and Vanessa Hudgens spawned from the family entertainment corporation, Camp Rock is a rather weak effort, even by High School Musical standards. Serving mostly as a vehicle for the three Jonas brothers, who play the parts of over-privileged pop band Connect 3 (imagine that), the film takes most of its cues from several contemporary teen comedies such as Mean Girls. Except, of course, that it has been thoroughly watered down, smothered in forgettable pop music, and not allowed anything close to an interesting storyline.
Do... re... fa... damn! Cut!
Encoded in Disney's trusty ol' AVC (averaging about 20 Mbps), Camp Rock has a decent, but not great, high definition presentation. Characters and their environments seemed overall a bit soft, and the set dressing just never has anything all that interesting to examine in the first place. Flesh tones exhibited some red push here and there, and the textures of skin and clothing weren't quite as sharp as they could have been, hence that "feel" of a soft appearance.
Colors, on the other hand, were brilliant and highly varied, due to the characters' inexplicably endless supply of outfits and costumes (isn't this supposed to be a summer camp?) The musical sequences, especially, pop from the screen, and the practically-perfect-in-every-way Disney-fied summer camp is full of vibrant tones. Blacks and shadows are hardly present (the film has that oddly-lit "soap opera" feel to it), but the levels are satisfactorily deep. The same applies to whites, which shine without blooming.
Camp Rock comes with an entire array of audio options. Featuring English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French in Dolby Digital 5.1, the film's single lossless option is a PCM 5.1 track, which is an admittedly ample and satiating mix. Despite the fact that the music itself is blah, the PCM 5.1 still does its best with what it's got. The music "stage" is mostly front heavy, but the rears and LFE channel are used just enough to flesh out the sound and make the songs amply "boomy." Dialogue is mostly restricted to the center channel, but the fronts are used here and there to follow a moving character, and the rears feature a good amount of ambiance and "wilderness noise." Over all, the sound is quite a good mix, and deserves to be commended.
Extra features on the Blu-ray Disc of Camp Rock are divided in a fashion typical to Disney's home video disc releases of the past three years or so. Categorized under Music & More and Backstage Disney, most of the material is fluff, aimed squarely at its target audience of "tween" kids. Music & More contains Music Videos for "Start the Party" and "We Rock," presented in 4x3 standard definition with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Sing Along With the Movie is a self-explanatory subtitle feature that displays lyrics during the run of the film for viewers to... well, sing along. Camp Rock Karaoke provides instrumentals of the film's songs as well as subtitle lyrics for viewers to try their hand at singing Camp Rock's tunes.
Backstage Disney offers up several spotlights and looks behind the scenes, all of which (save for one) are presented in standard definition with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. That single exception is The Camp Rock Set Tour, a brief 6½ featurette hosted by Giovanni Spina, who plays drummer Andy in the film. Encoded in AVC with Dolby Stereo, Spina leads the viewer around areas such as the Classroom and Cafeteria sets, as well as the snack truck and cast trailers. The editing is very fast-paced and really does get irritating rather quickly. The tour also includes several "special appearances" by Joe Jonas, who seems baffled and really at a loss for any substantial comments without a script nearby.
The lengthiest featurette is How To be a Rock Star! - which "teaches" kids how to sing, dress, behave, practice, and even network "like a rock star." I can't begin to count how many times the phrase "rock star" was used in all of the supplement's 28 minute runtime, but it certainly was beyond overkill. Platitudes a-plenty are spouted from the various young actors' mouths, as well as extremely frivolous advice about sunglasses and having "sweet moves." In addition the typical "be cool, stay in school, say no to drugs" advice is lobbed out, as well as such savory tidbits as "you gotta schmooze." Indeed.
Jonas Brothers: Real Life Rock Stars is a 15 minute venture with the three musical siblings Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas, who reflect on their origins, character quirks, and share thoughts on their career and the music industry as a whole. Again, not the most mentally stimulating of segments, but something's got to pad out the disc, no?
The remainder of bonus features get a bit thin and more negligible. Introducing Demi Lovato is a 5 minute talk with the actress cast as the film's protagonist, intercut with behind-the-scenes antics. The kid is naturally all giggles and smiles and squeaky clean inoffensiveness. Naturally, she's, like, way into music, as well. Camp Memories is about 6 minutes of production photos and a handful of short video clips, all shown in a slideshow style set to 2 of the film's songs. "Hasta la Vista" – From Rehearsals to Final Jam is a quick 5 minutes following the three-week choreography process for one of the film's climactic musical sequences. "Too Cool": Setting the Scene features a brief 3½ minute look at the filming of the dusk bonfire performances for the song "Too Cool," as well as the separate cutaway audience reactions.
Wrapping up, the disc also features several Sneak Peeks for the Blu-ray release of Sleeping Beauty, the Hannah Montana concert, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tinker Bell, and WALL•E. A general ad for Buena Vista titles Blu-ray is also present, as well as the theatrical teaser for Beverly Hills Chihuahua and a TV spot for the Disney Parks - all of which are presented in high definition.
Two dimensional characters, painfully predictable plot turns, and very vanilla music. Camp Rock is so bad, it's reduced me to using alliterative description! It really wasn't a surprise that Disney landed a bomb in their inexorable quest to cash in on the ever-so-wholesome teen musical genre, which marches onward in the autumn theatrical release of - lord help us - High School Musical 3. Aside from some purty colors, everything about the film is just too thin. The Blu-ray Disc release features good picture quality and nice full sound, but it's a pity such wonderful technology is used on dreck like this. It could be worse, but I don't know how!
2010
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Available on Double Feature
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Available in Double Feature
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Extended Dance Edition
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2-Disc Shake and Shimmy Edition
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