HANNAH MONTANA MOVIE review by Gary Dean Murray

Hannah Montana is a phenomenon that I truly do not understand. Then again, I'm not a tween girl. The Disney Channel TV show about a simple young woman with a secret identity as a major pop sensation is a sensation in its own right. The program has spawned everything from lunch boxes to clothes, and at the center is young Miley Cyrus, the girl behind Hanna Montana. Now she takes a small step by going on to the big screen with the same character in Hannah Montana the Movie.

Miley plays Miley... Stewart, a young girl with a clandestine personality. While Miley struggles with gym class, she has an alter-ego, the supercharged teen singing sensation Hannah Montana. Much like Super-girl, she tries to keep her secret identity a secret by donning a wig and sunglasses. But an English tabloid reporter is hot on her trail. Her manager (Vanessa Williams) is only worried about keeping the money rolling in while Dad (Billy Ray Cyrus) just wants to keep his teen daughter grounded. This is hard to do in materialistic LA with a materialistic kid. Hannah goes to the extreme by having a fight with Tyra Banks over a shoe.

Well, Hannah is asked to appear in NYC, but the private jet winds up in Crowley Corners, Tennessee Miley's original home town. Dad has hi-jacked her to put a little county back into this LA girl. He wants her to connect with both her family and her roots. Even though she is stuck in the sticks for a few weeks, she tries to make the best of it, helping out with the dishes and doing 'in town' shopping. Miley finds that an evil developer (Brian Bostwick) wants to turn her cute little home town into a sprawling mall. Also she discovers that the little boy she left back home is now a dimpled and muscled, non-threatening teen hunk next door.

The film is about finding out what is important AKA small town values and family. Oh, and how Hannah Montana will have to ride to the rescue.



No one in the cast delves into their characters to any degree of pain or reflection of the human condition. Let's face it, this is a Hannah Montana movie and not Shakespeare. It is a bunch of nice people trying to keep a nice place nice. Even all the bad guys have a huge degree of niceness.

While much has been made about everything in and around Miley and her growing up in front of the camera, the question becomes - will her career be more like Tatum O'Neal or Jodie Foster? And the big answer is a “Who knows?” For now, she's a young kid with a fine voice who is putting out disposable pop tunes that probably won't stand any test of time. She does show a solid degree of acting talent in a self-deprecation style of comic timing.

Billy Ray Cyrus has always come across more as a country poser than a true country star. His one-hit wonder status as a Nashville star shows that even C&W music has some standards. But he does have a certain charm as Dad, and his love interest does seem believable. Though the soul patch on his lower lip is as bad as his career starting mullet.

This is so not a film made for me. It was made for the audience at the press screening, screaming young girls. For that audience, the film does work to a very high degree. But, for the adults who are worried about being bored to tears with the spectacle that will assault them on the big screen - don't worry. In the final analysis, Hannah Montana the Movie is a painless diversion full of fun, frolic and song. It is a non-animated G Rated film, as rare as diamonds today.

And there is a nice cameo by Taylor Swift, who gives a musical highlight that is the biggest song on the soundtrack.

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