HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3

This would be an easy film to miss in the belief that you weren't part of the target demographic - and I'm glad I now didn't (twice...!), since my curiosity got the better of me to see what the fuss was about.

High School Musical 3 is as exhilarating a couple of hours as I've had watching a movie for a long time - and although it appears to have a fairly standard high school romance comedy plot of obvious appeal to young teenage girls, there's an extraordinary dual reality taking place: this is about the most blatant and deliberate gay allegory ever made in recent Hollywood - and by Disney of all producers, who've clearly put a massive amount of resources into its making.

All the explicit stuff about career and study choices after graduating is a total smokescreen that I imagine the young HSM fan couldn't care less about; and the film's seeming chasteness neatly offsets any conflicts with the subtext of the boy-girl sexual chemistry. It certainly isn't an old-fashioned warning against teenage sexual precocity, as over-optimistically suggested in some conservative circles. On the contrary, it's only about sex.

Nearly all the male protagonists (apart from perhaps the geeky token hetero 'Rocket Man' character) are questioning their sexuality to one degree or another - and, as in the long history of film musicals, the stories' subtexts are all told in an obvious code through the songs (via the lyrics and the language of the elaborate dance routines) and the overall plot development, with theatre and basketball being the most obvious symbols of homo- and hetero- sexuality.

Sharpay Evans, the mandatory resident evil bitch who swings her hips in the sexiest killer pink lace boots and leather skirt combination you've ever seen, functions as comedic foil for all the tensions; while Gabriella Montez (cleverly chosen as having Hispanic origins), ostensibly the main love interest, senses that her offer of a place at Stanford will mean more to her than any fledgling high school crush; her concerns are far more to do with her peers' potential resentment towards her academic success. Yet although the girl roles have due prominence, really the movie is very much about beautiful boy Troy Bolton, as played by the excellent Zac Efron, who expertly hits all the spots of both his target audiences - in particular, the brilliant high-voltage junkyard sequence The Boys Are Back (think a heavy metal N'Sync circa Pop) and the steamy, erotically charged Scream (check out the truly outrageous double meanings in the lyrics). A film for kids? The little girls understand.

Despite its great songs and fun routines, there are clearly a lot of people that will get nothing out of the movie - yet, especially for those it's directly aimed at, High School Musical 3 is, that notwithstanding, a truly subversive masterpiece.