Hannah Montana: The Movie

Released: 2009
MPAA rating: G
Run time: 1:42

This is one of those movies where any review, this humble writer included, is basically a waste of space. Its audience is its audience and they will see it no matter what any one says. Those who are not interested never will be. In any event, I'll take a shot. For those of you without tween girls, "Hannah Montana" is the alter-ego of Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus), regular girl by day, pop star by night (aka "The Best of Both Worlds"). That is the basic premise of the TV show on which this movie is based. In the movie, Miley is leaning a little too heavy in the direction of "Hannah", losing her regular girl roots. Her dad (real-life dad Billy Ray Cyrus) decides it is time for her to disappear from the public eye for a while and brings her back to her hometown of Crowley Corners, Tennessee. Once there, she finds a town on the verge of losing a large plot of land to a developer who will build a mega-mall, destroying their small town feel. Of course, she also finds herself falling for ranch hand Travis Brody (Lucas Till). As she reconnects with her roots, she finds she needs to decide who she wants to be: Hannah Montana or Miley Stewart. The movie obviously has much better production value than the TV series and certainly a more serious storyline. They do find plenty of opportunity to mix in some of the slapstick comedy style from the show. Although the shows characters are represented, many of them are sort of done away with quickly. I was not all that crazy about the introduction of a publicist (Vanessa Williams), who has "Hannah" moving at a breakneck pace. On the show, you always get the impression that her dad takes care of all that. I guess they needed a protagonist to get her to need to get away from it all. Lots of music is sprinkled in and some of it is not that bad, especially "The Climb", which is a really good song, but is now becoming badly overplayed by radio. The fans will love this movie and the parents will not find themselves wanting to scream, so I guess that is high praise.

Grade: C

Trailer: