Starstruck (2010)

Honestly, the best DCOM since very long time. It has everything.. comedy, romance, music. All the qualities that make a movie a perfect one for me.I love how Disney movies are all sweat and really descent for kids and teens. I always love to watch them. Camp Rock movies are great too.This one has really some amazing songs. They were very heartwarming too.Sterling Knight is such a rising star. I adore him very much. He is quite talented. I esp. love him in SWAC.Danielle Campbell is a very pretty actress. She played her role well witch I guess was not easy for a girl her age.Overall, this movie was a real pleasure to watch. I really really wish they make a 2nd one.

I still poke around Disney Channel when I'm bored, and this film caught my eye, only because of the occasional smile I get from Sterling Knight's egotistical character on another show. Ten minutes in, I had figured out the entire plot, climax and ending, which is not necessarily a bad thing - but just about every concept in this film was either clichéd or overused. Disney is very much into the pop-star concept, only because tweens of today are obsessed with celebrity and Hollywood. Take Hannah Montana, Sonny with a Chance etc. So Starstruck is about a small-town girl that wins the heart of a famed big shot teen idol - every tween's dream right? The one major downfall of this film that Starstruck does not adhere by is the characterisation of the female protagonist. She is supposed to be relatable, likable, so that female viewers can imagine themselves to be her. This is what Stephanie Meyer got right about her Twilight novels. However, this girl, she was so insignificant that I've forgotten her name, made me cringe every time she opened her mouth. Yes, she was annoyingly pretty, but her bad acting combined with the extremely bad screen writing created an astonishly horrible character. She bitched the whole time about how irritating her older sister is, about the celebrity of Hollywood and getting a little dirty after a great day. Her and Sterling's relationship lacked any real emotion either, it was very very shallow and seemed to develop over about two sentences as everything else was simply bickering. This film was so incredibly awful, that I couldn't even bear to watch the last of it. Once I saw Knight's character on the stage at her school dance, I switched the TV off. I would not recommend this, even for bored passing time. Once of the worst films, even by Disney standards, that I have ever seen.

It struck me almost immediately while watching Starstruck that I'd seen this plot in an old movie, to be precise one that's almost 80 years older than this product from the Disney Studios.Back in 1933 William Randolph Hearst produced a film for Marion Davies in which she played a star struck teacher of French in a girl's school who falls in love with a radio crooner. The crooner was none other than the biggest crooner of the day, Bing Crosby. So Marion goes off to Hollywood to meet her idol, in fact the name of the film was Going Hollywood. Now I'm willing to bet that Sterling Knight and newcomer Danielle Campbell have no idea that they are stepping into roles originally created by Bing Crosby and Marion Davies. I really do think Going Hollywood was the inspiration for Starstruck.Danielle is your average teen girl from Kalamazoo, Michigan crushing out on teen bubblegum idol Sterling Knight. Like Davies she goes cross country to meet her heartthrob. But Knight like most celebrities leads an insulated life, heavily insulated by the people who depend on him for a living including Knight's parents. The only one who gives him an occasional reality check is pal Brandon Mychal Smith, Knight's fellow cast member from Disney's Sonny With A Chance.Chelsea Staub another Disney teen player from the Jonas series is in this as Knight's vapid and shallow Hollywood girlfriend. As for Sterling he's far from the self centered Chad Dylan Cooper from Sonny With A Chance. He's a decent soul inside, but that soul is way deep inside covered with layers of Hollywood tinsel.There's been eighty years of change in musical taste and while I might not find the score here equal to what Bing sang and Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed composed, it's decent enough and I daresay with the marketing techniques of the Magic Kingdom will sell quite a few CDs.Starstruck is easy enough to take, nothing terribly outstanding, but does show off its young cast to good advantage. Even Bing and Marion might be pleased.

"Starstruck" (2010) is as good as most Disney movies and much better than some (insert "Princess Protection Program" here). Think "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" (2004) minus that film's PG elements.At its core it is another fairy tale as Kalamazoo teenager Jessica Olsen (nicely played by Danielle Campbell) visits Hollywood and accidentally meets mega-star teen heartthrob Christopher Wilde (Sterling Knight). Knight is joined by his "Sonny With A Chance" cast-mate Brandon Mychal Smith.The secret of this type of fairy tale lies in how well they connect with viewers; if the movie can get viewers to strongly identify with the character as she gets a huge rush from suddenly becoming part of the celebrity world, the viewer will get hooked. Then the challenge is to keep them hooked for as long as possible. "Starstruck" hooks you and provides this vicarious rush well past the midway point, in large part because of the twist of having Jessica rather under-whelmed by the circumstances. But eventually the wheels fall off, or in this case sink into an unlikely mud hole. The illusion bursts and everyone crashes back to reality because it is impossible to suspend disbelief when the AMC Pacer (Petunia) sinks into the mire. From that point on it is just overwrought melodrama until the movie finally recovers and goes out on a very nice reconciliation sequence.Chelsea Staub is again unsuccessful at playing a mean girl (remember the "Bratz" disaster). Too much natural likability, you would think they would have figured this out by now.Maggie Castle does a good job as Jessica's older sister Sara, who throughout most of the film is far more into Chad than is Jessica. Abbie Cobb plays Sara's friend AJ. If imitation is really the sincerest form of flattery, then Kay Panabaker should feel real good these days; as Cobb joins Bridgit Mendler and Meaghan Jett Martin (who can successfully play a mean girl) as yet another of Disney's bleached out Panabaker wannabe clones.Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.