Until the sequel, anyway. Which will probably come out in, like, two weeks.
Did you guys watch it? Did you? Did you squeal at the Jonas brothers doing… nothing of particular importance?
Let me make it clear that even though I hate the Jonas brothers and their shitty music, I was completely prepared to like Camp Rock. I like cheesy stuff when I have a healthy buffer of vodka in my system.
But seriously, how the fuck did four different people write Camp Rock? How did one person write something, show it to three different people, and each of those people said, “Nice! No need for a second draft of THIS baby”?!
I actually ended up watching Camp Rock again when it aired. With my sister and brother-in-law. It was actually pretty great watching it with them, because things would happen in the movie and one of them would say, “Oh, that’s obviously a set-up for later,” and I’d say, “Actually… no. That never comes up again.”
First off, Demi Lovato needs to stop smiling. For serious. It hurts.
Anyway, she plays Mitchie, this girl who is poor but yet IS SOMEHOW STILL TALENTED (I know). I love how she makes this big deal about how she only has one friend at school, yet she is undeniably pretty and doesn’t appear to have any problems talking to new people. The movie starts off with the world’s lamest wardrobe montage – really, there are two different outfits, one of which is shown twice – and with her singing and trying on different pairs of sunglasses and… I guess she’s just a really fun girl who loves life. Except that she has no friends. Yes, because so many unpopular 14-year-olds are totally thrilled about everything.
So Demi really wants to go to Camp Rock, but her parents can’t afford it, except WAIT THEY TOTALLY CAN if her mom becomes the camp cook and forces her daughter to perform menial labor for no pay. THANKS, MOM!
Then we see – from a conveniently-placed news report, like, way to use intelligent plot devices, guys – that some guy (played by Joe Jonas, and his character has a name, but please, we all called him Joe Jonas) has pissed off his band members by storming off a music video set, so the rest of the band… cancels their tour? And forces Joe Jonas to go teach at Camp Rock? Are they allowed to do that? I don’t think their music label would be like, “Yes, we fully support not earning millions of dollars while Joe Jonas spends several weeks not really doing anything.”
Mitchie arrives at Camp Rock and while she initially makes friends with the sassy, independent Caitlyn, Mitchie instead tries to fit in with the cool-girl group. Except the cool girls only like girls from rich parents, so Mitchie LIES and says that her mom is the president of some music company. Yes, the same mom who is EMPLOYED AT CAMP ROCK AS THE COOK. Yeah, I can’t see that biting her in the ass. At one point, Caitlyn says, “Well, my parents are – ” and then is cut off by one of the cool girls.
Brother-in-law: Oh, so it turns out Caitlyn’s parents do something really cool?
Me: No.
Brother-in-law: What do they do?
Me: We never find out. This never comes up again.
Brother-in-law: I think you’re wrong. You just forgot.
Me: I will bet you a billion dollars that I’m right.
Brother-in-law: …No.
I think the funniest parts of Camp Rock are the songs, because I can’t figure out if their tactics were smart or stupid. The only time anybody sings in the movie is when they’re actually performing for other campers, which means that, sometimes, people are singing songs that have nothing to do with the plot. I honestly have no idea whether this works for or against the movie. I do like that every song comes complete with back-up dancers. At a CAMP for ROCK.
Joe Jonas finally shows up to teach his class, which is… hip-hop dancing? The fuck? Isn’t he a guitarist/singer? I have no idea what’s going on. He shows up and just says, “Everybody grab a hat and a mic,” because there are randomly boxes of trucker hats and microphones just standing by. And then comes the wonderfully intricate dance number, because all these kids already know how to dance in sync. Wow, Joe Jonas is a good teacher.
Oh, but there’s a drummer guy in the dance class – we know he’s a drummer because he has his drumsticks with him all the time, EVEN IN DANCE CLASS – who is a bad dancer. So Joe Jonas, even though he was a jerk five minutes ago, is all, “I’ll help you get the rhythm from your sticks and into your feet, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” And you know what? WE NEVER VISIT THIS PART OF THE STORY AGAIN. We never see drummer guy dance – or, if we do, it’s in the background with all the other kids as part of a different storyline.
Now, even though they make a big deal about how shy Mitchie is onstage (except we don’t really ever see any evidence of this beyond her saying “oh, I’m nervous” and then doing it anyway, LIKE EVERYBODY DOES), she apparently has absolutely no problem flirting with Joe Jonas. At all. She’s all stammering in front of the cool girls and then Joe Jonas shows up and she’s like, “HEY BABY GRAB MY BOOBS.”
Also, am I wrong, or is Joe Jonas an INSTRUCTOR AT THE CAMP and yet still FORMING A ROMANCE WITH A CAMPER? I don’t care how close in age they are – there has to be some kind of rule against that. Well, there would in normal life.
Oh, yeah, so earlier, Joe Jonas was hiding in some bushes (go with me on this) and he hears Mitchie playing her shitty song on a piano, but by the time he gets inside the building, she’s gone (which makes even less sense since he was literally hiding RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR – in fact, if he had simply TURNED AROUND he could have seen her through the window). So he spends the movie trying to find “the girl with the voice,” like, maybe you want to be a little more specific, there, Kojak.
Eventually, one of the cool girls finds out Mitchie’s secret and forces Mitchie to tell everyone that her mom is just a cook. So Mitchie learned an important lesson about lying – DON’T LET ANYONE FIND OUT. Joe Jonas gets all mad at her for some reason and her life is ruined. RUINED.
Then, when Joe Jonas is by himself, he’s playing Mitchie’s stupid song, and the cool girl hears him and recognizes it as Mitchie’s. So cool girl goes and steals Mitchie’s song book. AND THEN THIS PLOT POINT IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. I’m not kidding. You think she’s going to steal Mitchie’s songs? No. No she doesn’t. Instead she frames Mitchie for stealing her bracelet. Yeah, I have no idea.
At the Camp Rock press junket, I was talking to one of the producers about this part, and he was like, “Nooo, you just misunderstood. She wasn’t stealing the songs, but when she saw that Mitchie had written the song that Joe liked so much, the cool girl didn’t want Mitchie to be able to perform the song, so she framed Mitchie in order to get her kicked out of the final performance.”
Oh. THAT IS SO MUCH CLEARER, THANK YOU. (Also, every single other person I talked to about this was like, “Oh, no, I thought they had just screwed up the storyline, too.”)
Anyway, when the cool girl performs, her rock star mom is in the audience, but then her mom takes a phone call in the middle of the song, so cool girl trips and cries and thus is totally redeemed. Actually, she doesn’t cry so much as do the most amazing fake crying you will ever see in your life. Even with the horror that is the rest of the movie, Camp Rock is almost worth the whole thing just for the fake crying. She apologizes to her lackeys for being so mean, and then she’s like, “Hey, Mitchie, I told the camp director you didn’t really take my bracelet.”
Gosh, that certainly sounds like something WE WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE.
Yeah, anyway, Mitchie performs her stupid song, Joe Jonas realizes that SHE’S THE GIRL, and then they all dance together and don’t kiss.
Did they just write this script when they were high on shrooms? After all that and THEY DON’T EVEN KISS?! What the fuck, Disney channel? WHAT THE FUCK?
Oh, wait, I forgot my favorite part of the story. The reason that Joe Jonas is such a jerk? It’s because his label wants him to play this lame, cookie-cutter music that will sell. But now that he’s at CAMP ROCK he can finally make the music HE wants to make. So he comes up with the LAME, COOKIE-CUTTER MUSIC OF THE CAMP ROCK SOUNDTRACK. And he’s all, “Oh man, this music is SO RAD! But the label will NEVER go for anything THIS edgy! CURSE MY AWESOME EDGINESS.”
And, of course, the label does go for it. It’s not even an issue.
So, in conclusion, I thought Camp Rock would be cheesy but entertaining, but it was cheesy and DIDN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE. Every time you thought they were setting up a hackneyed plot device, it turns out that if they were, they completely forgot about it later. AND THEN THEY FILMED THE ENTIRE THING.
Come on, guys! Just show the drummer guy dancing a solo at the final performance! Have the mean girl perform Mitchie’s song and have Joe Jonas all disappointed because he doesn’t actually like her! Then have Mitchie get over her stage fright (and actually have her have stage fright to begin with) to sing her song properly and Joe Jonas realizes that she’s really the girl of his dreams. Then have Caitlyn’s parents show up, and it turns out THEY ARE THE PRESIDENT OF EVERY MUSIC LABEL OF ALL TIME and they’re all, “We’d like to make Mitchie super famous and rich, while Cool Girl will be blacklisted for the rest of her life.” Then Mitchie and Joe Jonas kiss and girls all over the world faint.
Seriously. I just wrote that in two minutes. Good lord, Camp Rock. Two minutes of rewrites! Could you really not postpone your daily 2 p.m. trip to the bar for TWO MINUTES?
…Okay, I can kind of sympathize with that. But STILL. Camp Rock serves as proof that if you’re desperately trying to recapture the success of something else, slow down a little bit to make sure you’re not screwing the whole thing up. Or, failing that, throw a bunch of money at a subpar boy band and hope that people don’t notice your crappy script.