Disney´s Prom reportedly cost $8 million to make and grossed only $10 million in theaters. While it’s not a terrible film, Prom probably had no business appearing at local multiplexes. Then again, you can’t blame Disney for trying. After television ratings went through the roof for original Disney Channel movies High School Musical and High School Musical 2, Disney released High School Musical 3: Senior Year in theaters, where the film with an $11 million budget, grossed more than $250 million worldwide.

PromProm might have found more success as a film on the Disney Channel.

With the senior prom only three weeks away, all the hard work put in by the prom committee goes up in smoke when the decorations are destroyed by fire. Senior class president Nova Prescott (Aimee Teegarden), who believes prom is supposed to be the biggest night in everyone’s lives is completely devastated. When the rest of the committee takes a pass on redoing the decorations, Principal Dunnan (Jere Burns) forces bad boy Jesse Richter (Thomas McDonell) to help her out, as punishment for his latest infraction. Jesse isn’t much help at first, but once he understands how much it means to Nova, he really gets down to work. Somehow, we just know that bad boy Je has caught the eye of sse and good girl Nova are going to fall for each other.

In contrast to Nova, there’s Lloyd (Nicholas Braun) a guy who’s a bit awkward, and largely ignored by girls, who says, “Prom´s like the Olympics of high school. You wait four years, three people have a good time, and everybody else gets to live on with shattered dreams.” As someone who graduated from high school more than two decades ago, Lloyd’s not too far off there. Prom isn’t that big a deal in the scheme of things. It comes, it goes, and life goes on.

Elsewhere, star athlete Tyler Barso (DeVaughn Nixon) is cheating on his girlfriend Jordan (Kylie Bunbury) with sophomore Simone Daniels (Danielle Campbell), but still expects to be be prom king. At the same time, Simone has caught the eye of Lucas Arnaz (Nolan Sotillo). Needless to say, the film has every high school click and stereotype covered.

The screenplay by Katie Welch is wholly predictable with few surprises. Most will see whats coming long before it happens. The film’s best element is the running gag of Lloyd’s numerous attempts to find a date in the last three weeks before prom. Other than that, everything else has been seen before, and in most cases, done better. Nova and Jesse meet on a bench outside the principal’s office; it’s almost immediately obvious what will happen for them. The story of the jock cheating on his girl is filled with sweet clichés, and his eventual comeuppance falls flat. Other stories (a girl afraid to tell her boyfriend that she was accepted to a college across the country, the clueless heartthrob who lets Nova down early and often, etc.) are utterly boring and add little to the film. It also doesn’t help that director Joe Nussbaum’s pacing feels incredibly slow, and cutting ten minutes or so from the project might have made things much better.

As long as you don’t go into Prom thinking it’s going to be a serious, stick-to-your ribs film you’ll be fine. It’s more like cotton candy, sticky, sweet, and disposable.

Presented in 1.78:1 widescreen this 1080p transfer is a very good one. Colors are bold and bright, black levels are inky, there´s nice edge delineation, and no digital anomalies.

The audio is an English DTS-HD MA 5.1, with an English descriptive 2.0 option and additional audio choices in Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1. The audio is crisp. Rear effects speakers channel ambient sounds, but they never really fly far from the source. Still, it´s a sharp audio track.

Subtitles are in English SDH, French and Spanish.

Aside from a DVD, we get the following special features:

  • Bloopers (HD, 2 min.) A typical blooper reel.
  • Putting on ‘Prom’ (HD, 6 min.) This making of featurette covers in the ins and outs of Prom’s evolution and trip to the big screen.
  • Last Chance Lloyd (HD, 10 min.) This “all-new short” (as the box proclaims) shows Lloyd trying a few more times to get girls to go out with him. If you liked seeing him get shut down in the movie then you’ll like this short.
  • Deleted Scenes (HD, 8 min.)  Only three deleted scenes included here. Each of them have introductions from director Joe Nussbaum and producer Justin Springer. They discuss why each scene was cut.
  • Music Videos (HD, 24 min.) Count them seven music videos. Songs include “Time Stand” by Moon, “Your Surrender” by Neon Trees, “We Could Be Anything” (English version) by Nolan Sotillo, “I’ll Be Yours” by Those Dancing Days, “Come On, Let’s Go” by Girl in a Coma, and “Not Your Birthday” by Allstar Weekend. These are watered down music videos with a ton of random scenes from the movie edited in.