|
Thursday, 08 July 2004 |
  The title "Camp" refers to a summer sleepaway camp called Ovation, where mostly teenaged kids go to put on plays and musicals while school is out. You get an idea of what kind of kids these are when, on the bus ride to the campgrounds, someone starts singing a thirty year old showtune from the musical "Follies" and all the other kids are able and eager to cheerfully join in, ala "Almost Famous." That moment, early in the movie, hints at what "Camp" could have been but isn't - an affectionate teen ensemble comedy about this collection of stagestruck oddballs, outcasts, and music theatre geeks, who can only let loose and be themselves when away for the Summer. It's a neat irony that they go away to essentially play at being someone else again, but this movie isn't interested in reaching for anything like that.
All the teenaged boys at Camp Ovation seem to be gay with one exception. He's our protagonist, naturally, the teen magazine handsome Vlad (Daniel Letterle) who is immediately swooned over by just about everybody regardless of gender, race or age. It's a bore that "Camp" quickly gives short shrift to everything and everyone else except prettyboy Vlad and his sub-WB Network love rondelays, as he frustrates both his gay would-be drag queen roommate (played as well as could be expected under the maudlin circumstances by Robin de Jesus) and a sensitive wallflower (played less well than expected under any circumstances by Joanna Chilcoat). Even the adults at Camp Ovation are not immune to Vlad's overstated charms: when he performs a perfectly bland rendition of The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" that the reaction shots tell us we should think wonderful, a female counselor can't contain her glee that they've found "an honest to God straight boy." No one could ever call this movie subtle.
As "Camp" hobbles along, unsure of its tone and packed with enough closeups of Vlad to be mistaken for a toothpaste commercial, the movie spells out for us that he's a manipulator who just wants to people-please everybody. If you think that the other characters in this movie will buy a clue and toss his ass into the river when they realize it, you haven't been paying attention. No, even Vlad's selfishness is finally meant to be adorable. Superficial does not even begin to describe the depiction of Vlad's narcissism.
For a movie about kids who put on four new shows every two weeks, there is basically nothing here about the process of doing that work. The few short glimpses that are included show sourfaced kids being bullied by a choreographer or a director - if the day in and day out work at Camp Ovation is that horrible, why are the kids so excited to return there every year? Avoiding any depiction of the theatrical process not only blands the movie out, it also robs us of the pleasure of seeing the kids pull a performance together, and without that context, the movie stops cold everytime we see them perform. Until the finale, there's only one exception (and it's the best scene in the movie). It involves an emotionally intense understudy who switches from co-dependently fawning over the star to stealing the spotlight from her, mid-performance. You see it coming, but the performance (by Anna Kendrick) is so delicious it's enjoyable anyway and, for once, someone thought to choose a show song with lyrics that added to the situation.
It's also disappointing that "Camp" is music scored with bland poppy ballads rather than with the show music that these kids' lives are informed by. This goes not only for the background songs peppered throughout the movie, but eventually even the songs the kids perform. If you can guess why show music writers like Stephen Trask (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime) were recruited to write some of the ballads, you were probably born a marketeer.
There's a cliched subplot with an eleventh hour payoff involving one of the counselors. He's a fictional music theatre composer who turned out a classic years ago, but now wallows in cynical drunken misery (what other kind is there in movies for burned out creative types?). One of the kids (you guessed it, it's good ole Vlad, shot this time from below to emphasize his jawline) finds years' worth of the guy's sheet music that no one knows about. It's the holy grail of music theatre, we're told, even though it's not show music at all, it's pop and funk and gospel. Inspired by, who else, Vlad again, those darned kids decide to junk the plans for their big end of Summer benefit show and put on a concert with the counselor's pop songs. I lost all hope and respect for "Camp" right there.
I can't imagine who this movie would please. I'm not much of a fan of the movie "Fame," but if you want to see an ensemble picture about young folks into the performing arts, it would be a better investment of your time in every way.
Starring: Daniel Letterle, Robin de Jesus, Joanna Chilcoat, Anna Kendrick, Tiffany Taylor, Sasha Allen, Alana Allen, Stephen Sondheim (cameo).
Director: Todd Graf
Studio: MGM
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 114 mins
Release: 2003
Reviewer: Patrick Lee |
All Reviews and original content © 2004-2009 Slacker-Reviews.com. Any reproduction in whole or in part without the express written consent of Slacker-Reviews.com is a violation of applicable laws.
Modification and hosting by Rice Photography & Design
|
Movie Review List 
