It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

This is shorter than the average HSM DVD, if with lots of extras. It is from a tour of live concerts in the USA, likely 2006. The MC mentions Houston. It seemed to be a cheap way to find out what HSM is about, but the features are what is needed for that. It did show me that it included a couple of songs that I could like at first hearing, that there were frocks that I found to be riveting, that Sharpay Evans was sort of cute and a very nice girl. * HSM is rather noticeable. I knew that it was a high school story with music attached. There have been impressive features in that genre. I knew that it was a high school story acted by actors older than high school age. Iffy, but again there have been impressive quality examples with this. Reviews that I have seen of HSM features do not always hint that HSM is best left to the under 12s. * I found that, first viewing, the music did not appeal to me much. Bits yes. More viewings helped and Donnie Darko did help me to like Tis a lot. Instant appeal. Initial reaction: the music similar to my Will Young Live (2003ish) DVD, but a lot less mature. The audiences of those two concerts. Both mostly young, but HSM a couple of years younger? As if the HSM crowd should find Will Young okay while also feeling okay about HSM? * The other DVD concerts that I have with a young audience are the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. I have difficulties with that, but not from the music. I find the music to be hot stuff. Consider checking the net for websites, particularly Kazakhstan and the official site. www.esckaz.com and www.junioreurovision.TV The annual event is televised and also streamed on the web. At the start there were DVDs of this, difficult to find and expensive to buy and geared to the English language, not even subtitles in the other competition languages. Do the audio CDs include the videos of the songs? I find the CDs difficult to obtain in England. I now look to You Tube. There is now an archive of what appears to be all of the contests of JESC and also ESC. This is at You Tube. I would prefer DVD quality, but these do remind me of how impressive I find these competition concerts to be. So far I rate 2012 as the ultimate year, 2007 as second. Otherwise I feel a need to edit out bits and I do not have what it takes to do that to You Tube VP8 encoded video. I rate 2010 as currently the best year for You Tube access in the English language. * To find out what HSM is about I needed more than HSM concert and I now have all of the three features, the last one also as a Blu-ray, and I like them all a lot, though none had an immediate appeal for me. I also have the sequel on Blu-ray, not as powerful as HSM but I still like it.