Having been alive for the original beach movies (with stars like Fabian, Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon, et al) it is hard not to bring a pretty jaundiced eye to anything that attempts to reproduce the naïve silliness that these films represented in their innocent lack of any serious content.
If you drop your 21st Century cynicism for a bit, Disney did it with this.
Not only did they nail the hyperactive, pun-filled, sight-gag filled recklessness of the originals, (minus most of the pretty-overt sexual content of many of those films) they did it using a storyline that managed to both echo and enhance the original beach films.
Being an early 60's and 'surf music nut', I was more than surprised how close the orchestrations and choral pieces managed to channel the infectious fun of those old tunes - or maybe I'm just being nostalgic for a simpler time.
I recognized all of those old tropes from every film mined for the 'plot' and every song mined for the structure of the film's. Maybe I'm just missing those old simpler days, but I was more than pleased.
People who complain about this film obviously have forgotten that the originals were never 'Academy Award' material (remember "The Monkey's Uncle"?). They were silly, weightless fantasy, and "Teen Beach Movie" (from the company that gave us Beach-Film queen, Annette) follows that tradition without impugning or complicating it. It is what it is advertised to be: silly, harmless summer fun.
There are very few films that I can totally recommend without reservation to both my 92 year old mother and my 10 year old neighbor - and this is one; my mother for the nostalgic look back at a sweeter, more innocent time, and my neighbor for a painless history lesson.
Disney's crystal-ball gazers hit it again - proved by their numbers this week. I don't know how they do it.
