Sunday, December 15, 2024

Teen Beach Movie (2013)

IMDb plot summary: Two surfing lovers, whose doomed relationship is nearing to a close, find themselves swept into a dimension-traversing wave that sends them into a beach movie musical in the 60's.
Directed by Jeffrey Hornaday. Starring Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell, and Gracie Gillam.

Teen Beach Movie is a musical about a teenage surfer couple who are about to break up because the girl is going to finish high school at an elite boarding school. The day she's supposed to leave, the two get caught in a bizarre ocean storm that lands them in the middle of the boy's favorite movie: a 1950s teen beach musical. The two have to figure out how to get back home. This was a slow start for me, but once the teens actually end up in the past, it suddenly became so much more fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it from there forward. It's got a great meta sense of humor while also thoroughly embracing the musical numbers. The songs are extremely well-written and very dynamically choreographed, which brings so much life to the story. The dialogue is pretty solid in its parody style, and the actors playing the feuding surfers and bikers absolutely nail the over-the-top acting style. The actual plot is much less interesting than the little side quests to sing and dance, so whenever it gets plot heavy I tune out a bit, but overall there is more than enough to like in this silly little movie.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Teen Beach Movie > Le voyage au Groenland
Teen Beach Movie < Safe
Teen Beach Movie > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
Teen Beach Movie > All the Best: Fun Begins
Teen Beach Movie > Cats (2019)
Teen Beach Movie > Beyond the Sea
Teen Beach Movie > Barton Fink
Teen Beach Movie < Leaving Las Vegas
Teen Beach Movie > A Room With a View
Teen Beach Movie > The Nice Guys
Teen Beach Movie > Barbie
Final spot: #1010 out of 3972, or 75%.

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